ANTI-RECIDIVISM PROGRAMS REDUCE STATE CRIME COSTS

If there's a lining, silver or otherwise, in the fiscal woe that has
befallen the commonwealth, it is perhaps that Virginians are learning more
about the good things their government does. Quietly administered services
that in ordinary times go unnoticed are now making news, albeit bad, as
they are targeted for substantial budget cuts.

Such is the case with those agencies that help former prisoners make a
successful return to society. The presence of programs like Step Up in
Norfolk, which assists with job preparation and placement, can be vital to
these offenders' efforts to become law-abiding, productive citizens.

Recidivism is a significant crime statistic. In discouragingly large
numbers, inmates who serve their sentences and are released end up back
behind bars after conviction for new offenses. This contributes further to
the costs of crime, the prosecution and the incarceration.

It has long been demonstrated that if former prisoners receive re-entry
guidance and help, they are far less likely to commit crimes again.
Similarly, those who do not get this kind of help are highly likely to end
up on the wrong side of the law again.

Officials of Virginia CARES, another program that helps former inmates,
says 74 percent of participants in the 1999-2000 fiscal year have avoided a
return to prison. The agency estimates that without such services, as many
as 80 percent of ex-offenders would land back in prison. Whatever the
total, support services for released prisoners seem to have an impact.

Ted Edlich, president of Total Action Against Poverty, which started
Virginia CARES in 1978, said the budget cuts are "the death knell for the
program" and called the decision "very short-sighted."

Obviously, if overall state spending isn't reduced, Virginia will end the
current fiscal year on June 30 in the red and won't come even close to
balancing the books for the 2002-04 biennium. So, yes, budgets need to be
balanced.

But wrecking programs that directly contribute to lowering state-spending
demands also strikes us as "very short-sighted." In some instances, a
scalpel rather than a cleaver should be applied to the state budget.