BY HELPING EX-OFFENDERS, EVERYONE BENEFITS

Every year, 600,000 of the 2 million men and women in America's prisons are
released. In California, 90 percent of its 157,000 inmates eventually will
be freed. These are staggering numbers.

During the last several decades, America has acted on many fronts to crack
down on crime. The list of crimes has increased; the severity of sentences
has increased; and the sentencing discretion of judges has been restricted.

At the other end of the prison process - when prisoners are released back
into society - laws also have been toughened. In many states, more
ex-offenders return to prison for parole violations, many of them minor,
than return for committing new crimes. In California, 80 percent of people
on parole return to prison within 18 months, the worse recidivism rate in
the nation.

Legislatures are urged to add new jobs to the list of those off limits to
ex-offenders, jobs ranging from transit bus driver to barber or beautician.

For many citizens, the first response to all this is "so what?" These
offenders committed crimes, and they gave up their right to expect any
breaks from society. But such an attitude is long on emotion and short on
logic. The overwhelming numbers above help point to why.

With so many ex-offenders re-entering society, we can have legions of
angry, unemployed and, in many cases, drug-addicted men and women walking
our streets and revictimizing innocent people. Or we can, as a matter of
sound public policy, attempt to ease the way for those who want a second
chance to become productive members of society.

In his State of the Union speech, President Bush announced his support of
the latter course. He proposed a four-year, $300 million prisoner re-entry
initiative to expand job training and job placement services and other help
for ex-offenders.

After decades of going in the opposite direction, some states already have
begun to reinstitute programs to help inmates transition back into society.
Ohio, which has one of the nation's most extensive programs, starts
planning for a prisoner's release from the first day of incarceration.

That planning includes drug counseling, job training, education,
psychological counseling and other services. Ohio also relies on various
faith-based organizations, which also are part of the Bush proposal.

Even though California, with the nation's largest prison system, spends
more than $5 billion per year, less and less of this money is going for
inmate rehabilitation. Some prisoner-rights advocates point to this as one
reason for the state's high recidivism rate.

The president's plan is just the beginning of what needs to be done. But it
is a good first step, particularly if it encourages states, which
incarcerate the bulk of the nation's prisoners, to begin re-examining their
offender re-entry programs.