NOWHERE TO GO

State must provide treatment, shelter to former inmates

The state's rush to ease prison crowding by speeding up the parole of
inmates has unveiled a glaring hole in the state's plan: Many of those being
released have nowhere to go.

Halfway houses that put a roof over the heads of former inmates and assist
them with counseling and job training are full with waiting lists. So, too,
are drug-treatment programs that many of the newly released desperately
need. And there is little state money to give such programs and other
services a badly needed boost.

The plight of newly released state prisoners was illustrated well in a
Thursday story by The News' Carla Crowder. Crowder told readers about
30-year-old Charla Smith, who was paroled in May after 8 years at Tutwiler
Prison for Women. Smith says she's been on drugs since age 13 and never held
a job or balanced a checkbook. "I've been here so long, I'm afraid I won't
know how to interact in society," she said before her release.

Yet four days later, she walked out of prison with a $10 check from the
state, a bus ticket to Birmingham and a 10-day supply of the pills she takes
for bipolar disorder.

Smith is one of the lucky ones. She's found a temporary home at a halfway
house in Forestdale through a new state-funded program and is receiving
counseling and classes. But the scarcity of beds and the special parole
board dockets to speed up paroles mean some released felons can be left out
in the cold.

While the parole board received $1 million from the state to hire more
parole officers, there was no money for halfway houses. That puts a heavy
burden on nonprofit organizations for meeting much of the housing,
drug-treatment, training and other needs of the flood of former inmates. The
state, however, can't afford to neglect these after-release needs while
focusing on incarceration. As one state mental health official said about
the necessity of drug treatment, "Otherwise, we're just spending money for
nothing."

Whatever it costs to improve the chance of former prisoners making it on the
outside is a bargain compared to the societal costs of them returning to the
life of crime that landed them in prison.