STUDY - INMATES FACE 'INVISIBLE PUNISHMENT' AFTER PRISON RELEASE

WASHINGTON -- More than 625,000 former prisoners will be coming back into
U.S. society this year, part of a record-breaking flow of inmates who will
face crushing obstacles in finding work and housing and repairing
long-fractured family ties, according to a newly released study.

The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based non-profit agency, found that
returning inmates often face so many restrictions after long stretches of
incarceration that the conditions amount to more years of "invisible
punishment."

The study warned that their chances of staying out of prison and remaining
crime-free are greatly diminished by laws that were promoted as being tough
on crime.

Denial of welfare benefits for minor drug-related offenses, rejection of
former inmates for accommodations in public housing, a lack of
drug-treatment programs, restrictions on employment and a dearth of
transitional housing are some of the factors that make it difficult for
former inmates to re-enter society, the study's authors say.

"There's always been an American belief that once you pay your debt, you
are free to rejoin the community, but these policies now form a sort of
permanent second-class citizenship," said Marc Mauer, assistant director of
the Sentencing Project and report co-editor.

For years, the Sentencing Project has championed alternatives to
incarceration and called for criminal justice reforms. The study, released
this week, was presented in 16 essays and reports that were collected in a
355-page book, Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass
Incarceration.

U.S. prison and jail populations have mushroomed from 501,000 to 2 million
people during the past two decades, by far the most among industrialized
nations. The aftershocks of that wave of incarcerations are beginning to be
felt, analysts and law enforcement officials say.

The number of inmates being released has more than doubled since 1994, when
it was 272,000, and there is no agreement about how best to deal with the
return of so many to their old neighborhoods.

Justice Department statistics show that more than 60 percent of former
inmates are rearrested within three years of release.

Some laws have destroyed the "safety net" for returning prisoners,
according to the Sentencing Project and other experts. The Higher Education
Act of 1998, for example, bars people convicted of drug-related offenses
from receiving student loans. In one recent school year, more than 9,000
people were deemed ineligible for the help.

Amy Hirsch, an attorney with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, has
studied a 1996 federal law that imposes a lifetime ban on people convicted
of drug offenses from receiving family welfare benefits and food stamps.

"They come out of jail hopeful, clean and sober, and then come out and run
into this brick wall," Hirsch said.

A number of states have opted out of the federal law, she said, as
lawmakers have come to realize the unanticipated effects of the legislation.