FROM JAIL CELLS TO A WORKPLACE

Two big reasons our jails and prisons are so full: substance abuse and
unemployment.

I asked senior warden J.J. Pitzeruse to estimate what percentage of the
inmates of Joe Kegans State Jail owed being there, directly or indirectly,
to booze or drugs. You know. Maybe they were convicted of doing something
else, like stealing, but wouldn't have done it if not involved with or high
on booze or drugs.

His guess is 80 percent. That's why the state jail has a substance abuse
treatment program.

State jails, while a division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
are different from state prisons. They were created only a half-dozen years
ago "to provide community-oriented, cost-effective incarceration for
low-level property and drug offenders," a TDCJ pamphlet says.

Pitzeruse said state jails provide a way to keep younger nonviolent
offenders separate from the more violent, more experienced felons serving
longer sentences in state prisons.

Helping them keep out of jail He said that state jail prisoners are serving
sentences of up to two years. They get no good-time credit and no parole.
However, they are provided programs and opportunities designed to help them
stay out once they get out.

In addition to the substance abuse treatment, there is training in how to
get jobs and a variety of work programs to help teach them how to hang onto
jobs.

For several reasons, the best Community Service Work Program assignment a
Kegans inmate can land is at the Houston Food Bank. The Food Bank works
some two dozen inmates, with a couple of guards along to keep an eye on
things, said Sgt. Cherry Edwards, who supervises the work program.

She said no inmate ever has tried to slip away while working at the Food Bank.

I asked Bryan Prophet, who has been working at the Food Bank for a month,
if he finds it tough to return to jail at the end of a shift.

"It's kind of hard to go back," he admitted, "but I deal with it. The short
time I have, it's all right."

Prophet has 2 1/2 months left to serve for violating his probation on a
drug conviction. He said he likes working at the Food Bank and may try to
get on the payroll there when he's out.

One reason it is a good job is because it is a job doing good. Anyone who
works there is helping to get groceries to the poor and needy folks of the
area.

"You always keep that in mind," said former Kegans inmate Mandrake Hilson.
"You're part of something that helps people."

Another reason it is a good jail job is opportunity. Hilson started work at
the Food Bank when he was in jail on a drug charge and then landed a
full-time job there the day after he got out. A half-dozen other former
inmates also have been hired by the Food Bank.

Training is yet another advantage offered by the Food Bank. Many who work
there learn how to drive forklifts and get licensed, which qualifies them
for better pay and makes it easier to get jobs at other warehouses.

`If it wasn't for this job...' James Sowell said he now works part time at
the Food Bank and also does an evening shift at a warehouse for a
supermarket chain. He got out of Kegans on March 11 after serving 14 months
for a probation violation for a theft conviction.

"I'm going to be honest with you," he said. "If it wasn't for this job ...
It keeps you out of going back to the same old area and hanging around with
the same old guys."

I asked whether there was some turning point he can remember when
everything sort of suddenly fell into place, some point when he understood
he could stay out of jail, stay out of trouble.

"I'm going to tell you exactly the point," he said, and then explained how
in a career and recovery resources session at Kegans they were taught to
tell the truth on job applications.

Where it asks if you've ever been convicted, you say yes, he said, then
explain that you served your time and learned your lesson. A lot of places
will give you a chance.

He said he learned you are more likely to hang onto a job by being honest
about it up front because, even if you get to work for a few-weeks trial
period someplace, before you get offered a permanent job the company likely
will do a basic background check. And when it's discovered you were lying,
you are out of there.

Something about that lesson, about learning how to get and keep a job when
he got out of jail, about knowing he could have a second chance, that made
the big difference to him, Sowell said.

Thom Marshall's e-mail address is thom.marshall@chron.com