A GOOD EXAMPLE

Keep your fingers crossed for John Savage.

Savage is starting life over at age 37. For the past 19 years, he's been in
and out of prison, hooked on cocaine and alcohol off and on, and a member
of society who took more than he gave.

Now, as Journal reporter John Railey detailed in a front-page story Monday,
he's staying at Samaritan Ministries, working at a job laying concrete and
vowing to stay out of prison and off controlled substances. It's taken some
perseverance. Savage was honest about his past and had some trouble landing
a job before being hired by Ernest Anthony, who says, "I don't pay any
attention to what he did if a man works." Savage earns $10 an hour.

After work, Savage goes back to Samaritan and attends Bible-study classes
and programs aimed at helping him stay off drugs. So far, so good. The
senior staff counselor at Samaritan says Savage is "very focused on what he
wants to accomplish."

Turning a more or less habitual offender into a productive citizen is not
just good for him. It's good for society generally. When someone is behind
bars, he's not paying taxes, he's not supporting his family and he's
costing the state $65 a day in room and board.

On Oct. 31, there were 34,056 people in the state prison system, which
releases 23,000 of them each year. Almost a third of those released are
charged with new crimes inside two years.

The finances are finally attracting some serious interest in the
possibility of taking people who are dependents of the state and turning
them into productive citizens. Programs to do that, monitored for success,
can be among the soundest investments a society can make in a healthy
future, both for the society and for its citizens.

The programs needed vary in subject matter widely. In some programs, the
object is to make an ex-offender a credible job candidate, wearing
appropriate clothing, speaking and acting like a potential employee and
gaining self-confidence.

Other programs attempt to bring job candidates together with those who have
jobs available. Transportation is an issue that is being addressed in some
innovative ways.

Recidivism is one of society's most insidious problems. It reflects wasted
resources and wasted human lives.

Ideally, of course, the best way to address recidivism is to keep people
out of prison in the first place. But we all make mistakes. They shouldn't
necessarily be unforgivable or fatal to a productive life.