EX-OFFENDER PROGRAMS PUT TO TEST

Teresa Fletcher leads a rather normal middle-class life. The 52-year-old
Hampton woman is married, owns a home and is raising her teen granddaughter.

She's disabled and can't work full time. Yet she takes classes at Thomas
Nelson Community College and likes to write during her spare time.

Life for Fletcher hasn't always been so comfortable.

She spent eight years in prison after committing burglaries and scams to
support an addiction to cocaine and heroin.

When released from prison in 1988, Fletcher found that a Newport News
program for ex-offenders, Virginia Cares, was there to help her get a job
and put her life back together.

Virginia Cares is one of 11 nonprofit groups in Virginia that offer
services to inmates and ex-offenders. The coalition of groups referred to
as PAPIS, for pre-release and post-incarceration services, helps
ex-offenders find jobs and a place to live after they're released from
jails and prisons.

Like so many other programs in Virginia, PAPIS lost its state funding when
Gov. Mark R. Warner announced budget cuts in the fall to ease the state's
fiscal crisis. While many of the ex-offender programs are surviving with
federal grants and money from local governments, others are foundering.

Federal contributions will decrease over the next few years, leaving the
groups searching for new funding sources.

n n

About 9,300 people in Virginia were released from prison in 2001 - many
with few dollars in their pocket and no family members to help them. Some
600,000 are released from prisons and jails throughout the nation each year.

When Fletcher got out of prison in 1988, she immediately went to Virginia
Cares' office on Maple Avenue. She figured she'd need some help finding a job.

A felony record can be an albatross that limits job opportunities for
former inmates. Employers are often afraid to take a risk. Despite years of
experience as a data entry clerk and supervisor, Fletcher was worried that
no one would hire her.

But her case manager, Julia Richardson, helped change her thinking,
assuring her that some employers would offer an ex-offender a job.
Richardson advised her to answer job applications truthfully.

After filling out six or seven applications, Fletcher landed a job with
Newport News Inc., then called Avon Fashions, a catalogue sales company.
Fletcher worked there for 10 years - starting at $7 an hour - before a
chronic illness left her disabled. The company makes decisions about hiring
ex-offenders on a case-by-case basis, a spokesman said.

PAPIS case managers try to connect potential employers with ex-offenders.
Case managers enter jails and prisons several weeks or months before an
inmate is released to assess an inmate's skills and their individual
situations. Inmates practice ways to conduct successful job interviews.

The help continues after release when ex-offenders are referred to shelters
where they can stay and to employers who might hire them.

"We teach them that getting a job is a job in itself," said Sandra Brandt,
executive director of Norfolk-based Step-Up Inc, a PAPIS program.

"We tell them they have to spend 40 hours doing it and not to be discouraged."

PAPIS providers, like Step-Up, will help inmates get Social Security cards
and prepare resumes, and help them get new clothes for interviews.

"We don't turn anybody away," Brandt said.

PAPIS groups, which help ex-offenders in 83 cities, towns and counties in
Virginia, say they have a proven record of success.

About 65 percent of all prisoners nationwide are ex-offenders who have been
re-arrested, according to a 1994 U.S. Department of Justice study that
tracked released inmates for three years. Some 27 percent of Virginia's
inmates are re-arrested, according to a 1997 Virginia Department of
Corrections study.

Brandt thinks PAPIS has contributed to the lower percentages of re-arrests
in Virginia.

"If you have a state like Virginia that has programs like PAPIS, you have
somebody there to help these folks when they come outside," said Brandt.
"Some states don't have programs like PAPIS."

Last year, the groups helped some 2,700 ex-offenders find jobs, according
to data they released.

PAPIS groups compare the $120 a year they spend on each offender to the
$21,000 the state spends to keep an inmate behind bars for a year.

Brandt said ex-offenders need some help when they come out of prison.

"Many have no place to go and no place to turn to," Brandt said. "We
average five inmate letters a day saying, 'I'm getting out soon, can you
help me?' "

Brandt added that felony records bar some people from moving into
high-crime areas, even when family members live there.

"A lot of ex-offenders are discriminated against," Brandt said.

Everald, a 33-year-old Gloucester man who didn't want his last name used
for privacy reasons, spent 11 months in prison for manslaughter before
being released in 1992. He was unemployed for about 18 months because
nobody would hire him.

Everald wouldn't answer the question on job applications about past felony
convictions.

"I'd leave it blank and let them call so I can deal with it," Everald said.
He said he wanted to explain his criminal background in person and talk
about the turnaround he'd made in his life. But no employers called him.

Everald stayed with his family and eventually got work with a contractor
who didn't ask questions about his past.

Even with PAPIS' help, some ex-offenders just don't make it.

Michael P. Cates, of Virginia Beach, served 17 years of a 30-year sentence
for rape and sodomy. Step-Up tried to help him last spring.

He recently landed back in jail after several months of freedom.

Step-Up helped Cates get a job with a temporary agency within two weeks of
his release. He was doing road construction work and renting an efficiency
at the Villager Lodge on Jefferson Avenue.

But a few months after his release, Cates stopped communicating with his
parole officer, moved from the Villager Lodge and didn't register his new
address with the State Police Sex Offender's Registry, which is a violation
of the law.

A state trooper arrested Cates last month on three counts of failing to
respond to the registry. Cates told the trooper he thought his probation
guidelines were too strict, and he didn't want his girlfriend to know about
his past.

Now Cates faces a possible 13-year prison sentence.

Brandt said ex-offenders like Cates often feel pressured by the terms of
their release and the requirements of probation and parole. Some who do all
the right things after being released from prison still face significant
hurdles, she said.

One ex-offender who was recently offered a job at a Target store had to
wait two weeks for a parole officer to verify his address so that he could
start work.

Brandt said his parole officer was on vacation and no other parole officers
were available to verify his address. So, the offender simply had to wait.

n n

In October, Gov. Warner announced $860 million in cuts to make up part of
an approximately $1 billion shortfall in the budget. The Department of
Criminal Justice Services, which distributes PAPIS funds, told the groups
the state wasn't going to fund them for the rest of the fiscal year, which
ends June 30, 2003. Instead, they'd have to find a local donor who could
offer matching money to receive some federal funding earmarked for
ex-offenders and drug addicts.

Most PAPIS groups have found municipalities that are providing matching
money. But at least one program at the Middle Peninsula Regional Jail
closed its doors in early December when the jail board refused to put up a
matching grant.

The jail's superintendent, David Harmon, said the jail board was concerned
that if it came up with $5,000 in matching money for PAPIS, the state would
ask the board to put up matching money for other inmate programs.

"If they fund one, would they fund them all?" asked Harmon, explaining the
concerns.

The jail superintendent predicts that the loss of the program may hinder
the success of those returning to society.

"Some of these guys that may not have come back, will come back," Harmon said.

The fiscal problems are coming at a time when criminologists and some
lawmakers have become more convinced of the value of rehabilitation and
re-entry programs that help ex-offenders transition to life outside. The
new thinking reverses an old trend.

"We've seen a really strong trend in the late '70s to the '90s to stop
worrying about what happens to prisoners," said Todd Clear, a professor at
John Jay College of Criminal Law in New York.

He said there was a broad consensus among experts in the 1980s and 1990s
that programs to help offenders weren't effective.

That belief among criminologists co-existed with a "get tough" attitude
toward criminals that was popular with the public when violent crime was
high. Sentences were lengthened throughout the country in response, and
parole was abolished in many states.

"Politicians gained electoral capital by saying they were going to make
prisons tough places," Clear said. He added that jail administrators would
try to hide rehabilitation programs and recreational programs out of fear
that legislators would cut funding in order to eliminate them.

In the last few years, a new consensus has emerged that programs targeted
at offenders who are leaving prison are worthwhile.

"When you're comparing having programs to not having programs - it's better
to have programs purely from a public safety standpoint," Clear said.

The problems ex-offenders face in the first days and weeks after release
are significant.

"You see your old pals," Clear said. "Suddenly, you're in charge of your
own life for the first time in years."

Sheriff Charles "Chuck" Moore, who runs the Newport News jail, called
Step-Up an outstanding program. A Step-Up case manager visits the jail
regularly to talk with inmates about ways to prepare for life on the outside.

"My thing is keeping them out of here," Moore said.

n n

PAPIS providers have been talking with members of Congress about getting
federal legislation to replace the level of funding - about $2.1 million -
they were receiving from the state before the cuts. But they're also
petitioning legislators to restore all PAPIS money in next year's budget.

On Wednesday, Warner proposed some relief for PAPIS - $438,000 - but it's
still far less than the $2.1 million the groups were getting before. The
General Assembly also still has to sign off on the governor's plans.

Brandt said state officials have told PAPIS groups that they likely would
need matching grants again for the fiscal year that begins July 1 to keep
their programs functioning.

The federal grant money PAPIS is receiving also will decrease substantially
over the next three years, requiring providers to come up with more local
or state money. The PAPIS groups are afraid they won't be able to come up
with the funding.

One head of a nonprofit organization said groups like PAPIS can't depend on
government funds. "The strongest programs have diversified funding
precisely because at a time like this you can't depend on local or state
funding alone," said Carol Shapiro, the executive director of the New
York-based Family Justice Inc. The organization trains groups and agencies
throughout the country about ways to help prisoners re-enter society.

Shapiro said groups should form partnerships with faith-based institutions,
public housing and employment agencies to help ex-offenders.

But Shapiro said lawmakers need to realize that a budget crisis is a
short-term problem and should avoid abandoning reputable programs.

"We're going to be worse off," she said, "if we don't provide a modicum of
support for families."