PRISON CROWDING PUSHES OUT FLOOD OF PAROLEES WHO OVERWHELM HALFWAY HOUSES,
REHAB CENTERS

The State of Alabama has decided Charla Smith is ready to leave Tutwiler
prison. Smith is not so sure.

"I've been on drugs since I was 13. I've never held a job, never balanced a
checkbook," she said in an interview at Tutwiler, where she has spent 81/2
years. "I've been here so long, I'm afraid I won't know how to interact in
society."

Four days later, Smith, 30, walked through the clanging iron gates, one of
hundreds of women newly paroled under the state's plan to comply with a
court order to ease Tutwiler's dangerously crowded dorms.

To help Smith succeed, the state cut her a $10 check, gave her a bus ticket
back to Birmingham where she'd committed her crimes, forging checks to buy
drugs and provided a 10-day supply of the pills she needs for bipolar
disorder. Smith arranged some personal papers, her drinking cup, soap dish
and toothpaste in a cardboard box she'd scrounged from the canteen.

And she was out.

Parolees such as Smith are arriving in Alabama neighborhoods in greater
numbers than ever. Halfway houses and drug rehabilitation centers are
scrambling to find space, especially for women.

These programs provide drug treatment and life skills to the newly free.
They provide a place to live but usually charge rent. They help felons find
jobs. But there is little funding, and the agencies are overwhelmed. Some
people who work in the field fear that without more services, jobless
parolees will wind up relapsing or stealing to survive.

"We're very committed to do it. But it's like a flood, opening a floodgate.
The system hasn't been built to respond to this need," said Chris Retan,
director of Aletheia House, a Birmingham drug rehab agency that houses
parolees and others.

Retan praises the idea of treating some offenders in the real world, rather
than isolating them behind bars. But supports must be in place for
everyone's good, he said.

"If you have people who are leaving prison who you know are unemployed,
have housing needs, have substance abuse problems, it just makes sense for
the community to provide transitional services," he said. "It's a community
public-safety issue."

Filling in the gaps:

Special speedy dockets for nonviolent prisoners have resulted in 576
parolees since April. Of those, 297 are women, said Cynthia Dillard,
assistant executive director of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.

The board received $1 million to hire more parole officers. But no state
money was set aside for halfway houses.

"We realize there needs to be," Dillard said. "Once someone gets out of
prison, they need to have continuing after-care to remain substance-free."

Social service nonprofits such as the Montgomery-based Aid to Inmate
Mothers fills in some of the gaps.

Workers with the group drive the newly released from Wetumpka to
Montgomery. The women select clothing and hygiene items from Kate's Closet,
a clothes charity set up by Aid to Inmate Mothers' Kate Richardson. She
coordinates programs to help prisoners find jobs and housing.

"I really believe they're trying, but the odds are against them,"
Richardson said.

She's had to arrange temporary housing for parolees at homeless shelters
when there are no other options. "It's bad," she said.

Richardson in May organized a resource fair at Tutwiler. Representatives
from most of the state's halfway houses answered questions and handed out
pamphlets. They met with hundreds of prisoners.

"We only have 14 beds, total," said Sarah Harkless, the state's women's
treatment coordinator with the Alabama Department of Mental Health and
Mental Retardation.

Those beds are funded through Project Freedom, a joint effort between her
department and Pardons and Paroles. Four halfway houses in the state are
making room.

By early June, all were filled or reserved, Harkless said.

"The reality is, the majority of people in our correctional system are
there for drug-related offenses, and they're going to need some treatment
in order not to go back again," Harkless said. "Otherwise, we're just
spending money for nothing."

'Easier for a man':

The shortage of women's services is not unique to Alabama. Communities
across the country have been slow to respond to the rise of women in prison
for drug problems.

"It is far easier for a man to access treatment than it is for a woman,"
Harkless said.

The parole board prefers a prisoner be released to a halfway house or
similar place. These days, parole is sometimes approved before a bed is ready.

"The letters go something like, 'I wasn't expecting to get out for three
years, but now I'm finding out that I'm up for parole and I need help with
a home plan,'" said Beth Bachelor, intake coordinator at Fellowship House,
a treatment center on Birmingham's Southside.

She knows of a woman who spent her first night of freedom in the Birmingham
bus station. The woman tried to get into the Salvation Army shelter but
arrived too late. She walked back to the station. The next day, she checked
into First Light, another shelter. Eventually, a bed opened up at
Fellowship House.

"We're full with a waiting list every day," Bachelor said.

Adrift and uneasy:

Smith, who was paroled May 12, lives at Olivia's House in Forestdale. She's
one of the first ex-prisoners to be placed there through Project Freedom.

She has her own small, unadorned room, with a twin bed, a table overflowing
with snacks and an adjoining bathroom. During the day, she attends
counseling and classes.

As much as she wants to make a life for herself, she is adrift and uneasy
without the regimen of prison life.

For nearly a decade, someone else told her when to eat, when to work, when
to sleep, what to wear. Every month she was allowed the same items: six
rolls of toilet paper, a razor, 25 sanitary napkins and soap.

The 1990s unfolded through newspapers in the prison library and the view
across U.S. 231 in Wetumpka. "I've been in a truck to go to the dump and
back," she said. "I've been out on 231 with a Weedeater." That's the extent
of her travels while incarcerated.

Her counselors tell her she's not ready for a job. But she knows that's
coming soon, and she's eager to work. At Tutwiler, she snapped up any class
that might help her on the outside. "I can fix your TV. I can do your
taxes," she said, adding that her dream is to work as an occupational
therapist for disabled children, in part to pay society back for the
trouble she's caused.

She hasn't used drugs or alcohol for nearly 5 years.

Delicately thin, with cropped hair and huge eyes, Smith looks like a scared
kitten. She's experimented with different looks: Dramatic eye shadow,
strappy sandals one day. A T-shirt and baseball cap the next.

Something is missing in this new life. Her friends remain in prison. But
she's burned most of her bridges in the free world.

"I don't care how many outfits you have and what you do with your hair and
makeup, you still feel scattered," she said.