SLOWING THE REVOLVING DOOR

Chantiece R. Koromah has accomplished in prison what she couldn't
achieve on the outside - earning her high school equivalency degree.
For this 19-year-old, that step is a first in turning around a life
upended by a deadly robbery. Six months into a six-year sentence, Ms.
Koromah already is worried about what she will face upon release,
which, with time off for good behavior, could be in 2008. Corrections
officials have the same worries, and are pushing ahead with plans to
better prepare inmates for release. But they need a freer hand to
accomplish this vast undertaking.

A state initiative called Restart (Re-entry Enforcement Services
Targeting Addiction Rehabilitation and Treatment) aims to give inmates
the education, treatment and job skills to change their lifestyles and
turn away from addictive or criminal behavior. But corrections
officials are limited to only two prison sites for Restart programs:
the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown and the
Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. Lawmakers last
year restricted Restart to these two pilot programs as a way of
evaluating its success - even as corrections officials across the
country were moving to this rehabilitation model as a way to reduce
recidivism.

But here's the problem: Inmates who participate in Restart programs at
the Hagerstown and Jessup prisons might end up spending their final
months - in some cases up to 18 months - in pre-release centers in
Baltimore and across the state. This means that just when it may
matter most, they won't have access to the programs that could help
them lead functional lives outside of prison.

That's just plain foolish. Warehousing inmates with access to few or
no programs has resulted in thousands upon thousands of them
reoffending and returning to prison. In Maryland, 51 percent of
prisoners are behind bars again within three years. Prison costs
nationally have skyrocketed from $9 billion in 1982 to $60 billion in
2002.

As lawmakers review the public safety budget, they should give prison
officials the leeway to include pre-release centers in the Restart
initiative and maintain a continuum of programs and services to
inmates preparing for release. That kind of continuing focus is
critical for Chantiece Koromah's chances to start anew. Chronically
truant as a Baltimore teen, she says her mother was more concerned
with her coming home at night than staying in school. Ms. Koromah and
another girl joined two male friends in a 2003 robbery - to get money
to buy tickets to an amusement park - that ended in the murder of a
construction worker. When she is released, she will need a place to
live (her mother has since died) and a job in order to care for her
son, born just two weeks ago.

Expanding the Restart initiative to help inmates as they are preparing
for release could slow the prison system's revolving door - and keep
Chantiece Koromah and others on the right side of it.