Outside help: Program to benefit ex-inmates as they try to re-enter society

Malia Spencer

Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2003 | 11:03 a.m.

Each year the Nevada Department of Corrections drops off in downtown Las Vegas convicts who have fulfilled their sentences.

The newly freed men and women, some of the 4,000 released from the Nevada prison system yearly, have nothing but the clothing on their back, a $21 check and usually nowhere to go.

This potentially lethal combination can lead felons to their old occupations, creating more victims, and landing the felons back in the prison system.

Corrections officials hope a pilot program at Southern Desert Correctional Center will break that cycle.

With a $1.4 million federal grant, the state Department of Corrections is implementing a program, "Going Home Prepared," that is designed to give inmates convicted of violent crimes the tools and skills they will need on the outside.

Department of Corrections officials stress that this is not an early release program. They are targeting inmates who are either paroled or scheduled for release anyway.

"They (felons) are going back into the community," said Howard Skolnik, the prison system's assistant director of industrial programs. "And they are going back with or without resources."

The grant aims to bring together community partners to help felons so that when they get out, they won't commit more crimes, Jackie Crawford, director of the Department of Corrections, said. The program is set to last three years and serve 250 male and female inmates.

"We lock them up and when they are released they have no options, just $21 and they are on the street," she said. "You've done your time, goodbye."

Crawford, who spearheaded the department's effort to obtain the grant, said the problem of ex-convicts re-offending is not just a Department of Corrections problem, but a community problem that needs a community solution. Currently the state has 10,837 inmates and 95 percent of them will be released at some point.

"Collectively there needs to be an effort to assist them so they don't repeat," she said.

Alexander Cortes, 28, will have finished his prison term Nov. 10 and is headed back to Las Vegas, where his family lives, after a year and half in prison. If he finishes the program, which he began in May, he will be the first graduate to leave the prison walls.

Cortes has been involved in the counseling classes and says he plans to pursue an electrician apprenticeship.

The program has "given me hope there is a chance for me out there," said Cortes, who, when asked what landed him in prison, replied "drug abuse and a bad temper."

It hasn't been easy, he said. The toughest part for him so far has been the victim empathy class because, he said, he was selfish before.

"I am not thinking the way I was," he said. "I am thinking of others now."

Along with victim empathy classes, participants attend a class that is designed to change the inmates' way of thinking, Dana Serrata re-entry coordinator, said.

Israel Vacquez, who has been incarcerated for seven years, has been involved in "Going Home Prepared" for four months. He goes before the parole board in July 2004.

Vacquez, who declined to say what he was in prison for, said he is going through the program to learn how to make his life better and to give a better life to his family.

"I've been waiting for this kind of program," he said. "They are trying to make us open our eyes."

Both inmates said they hope the program is successful and will last beyond its three-year trial.

The idea has only recently begun to gain support in Southern Nevada because of changes in the state's prison population. In the past most Nevada inmates were transient, from somewhere else, and returned to their home state. This year 83 percent of inmates are Nevada residents and eventually headed back to Nevada streets, Skolnik said.

That is why this program is necessary now, Skolnik said.

Crawford said "Going Home Prepared" has 46 community partners -- people and groups that can assist in inmate re-entry. The members and representatives sit on an advisory board that meets quarterly.

The federal grant was received six months ago, Crawford said, and had very specific criteria for eligible inmates. They must be:

The program begins six months before the inmate is to be released, Serrata, said. Inmates must earn their high school diploma or General Education Diploma while in prison, if they don't already have it, and participate in life skills and counseling classes.

"When they leave, basic needs are met," Serrata said.

She added that for one year on the outside participants will have a social worker who will help them develop coping skills and they have to appear before a judge in a re-entry court, yet to be developed, to make sure they are still on track.

District Senior Judge Jack Lehman, who currently presides over a re-entry court designed for nonviolent felons with drug abuse problems, said a new re-entry court for this program would be a good idea.

"I think it's worth a try," he said. "It could get people out of jail."

The re-entry court for nonviolent offenders requires participants to be drug-tested regularly and appear before the judge on a regular basis to ensure they are staying clean and out of trouble.

With the success of the drug court he helped found in Las Vegas, Lehman said, he would be willing to be involved in a new re-entry court for violent offenders.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger said the idea behind "Going Home Prepared" is a good one, but he is reserving judgment. His office has been one of the many partners since before Roger took office.

"I am concerned they may very well return to their life of crime," he said. "You always worry perhaps it's not going to work out."

Undersheriff Doug Gillespie, who represents Metro Police on the program's advisory board, said giving inmates the tools they need should increase their chances of success on the street.

"In my opinion they are giving these people tools to succeed, and I think that's a good thing," Gillespie said.

Serrata added "Going Home Prepared" represents a complete shift, from the Department of Corrections simply warehousing criminals to rehabilitating them.

"We don't want them to come back," she said.