'Home for Good' helps inmates likely to reoffend
Statistics show many are back in custody within three years
ALAN GUSTAFSON
Statesman Journal
September 29, 2005
Jim Swain knows the perils of drug abuse and the struggles facing ex-convicts. He has cycled back and forth between jail and the community several times. In April, Swain was released from the state prison system after completing a 21-month sentence for criminal mistreatment. He worried about being unemployed, homeless and adrift on Salem's fringes. "I was headed for the mission," he said.
His prospects have brightened, thanks in part to Oregon's "Home for Good" program. The award-winning program targets prison inmates labeled most likely to reoffend, linking them to community-based chaplains and re-entry coordinators who supply personalized post-prison support.
In Swain's case, Salem-area chaplain Wayne Crowder offered friendship, rides to church and help with basic necessities, such as housing and getting a valid state ID card. Swain now has a roof over his head, stable employment as a window builder and hope for the future.
The 34-year-old ex-convict said he won't slip back into a life of drugs and crime. "I stay connected to the people I need to and stay away from the people who can bring me down," he said. "I've got my life on a good track right now, and I plan on keeping it there." Thirty percent of Oregon ex-inmates return to custody within three years of their release for new crimes, Corrections Department statistics show.
Nationally, recidivism rates are much higher. Two-thirds of ex-felons return to custody within three years of their release, Justice Department studies show. Home for Good activists think the re-entry program puts Oregon in the forefront of national efforts to help offenders make the transition back into communities. "Oregon's doing a pretty good job: Seventy percent of those being released from prison do make it, so we're concerned about the 30 percent that are relatively high-risk people for reoffending," said Clancy Hinrichs of McMinnville. He was one of the first community chaplains to join the re-entry program.
As he sees it, ignoring ex-prisoners makes it more likely that they will harm more victims.
"Many people think that when you put (lawbreakers) in prison, that settles it," he said. "Out of sight, out of mind. The myth in that thinking is, 95 percent of those people are coming back into our communities. Often, they come back more damaged psychologically. So the question is, what do you do about this from a public-safety point of view?"
Religion isn't forced on offenders who volunteer for the post-prison program, Hinrichs said. However, mentoring, role modeling and faith-based support can and do play a pivotal role in keeping them on track, he said.
"In a faith community, you develop a new set of relationships and friends, and there's a whole lot said about attitudes and behaviors," Hinrichs said. "So we help them with all the material and physical needs, but we also are interested in their spiritual development."
Proponents said Home for Good works because it steers released inmates away from crime-fueling risk factors: criminal thinking patterns and hanging out with the wrong crowd.
"Those are the two highest factors that will determine whether somebody recidivates," said Tim Cayton, the re-entry chaplain for the Oregon Department of Corrections. "Who they hang around with and how they think."
In Oregon's crowded prison system, prime "risk factors" tend to get overlooked, or reinforced, amid the relentless flow of inmate admissions and discharges. "Virtually nowhere in the system, upon release or even while you're inside, frankly, do people address those," Cayton said. "Inside, you hang around with other offenders. On the outside, if you hang around with the former associates who got you in trouble before, you're going to get in trouble again. "And if you haven't corrected what we call criminal thinking -- all police are bad, they're all out to get me; it doesn't matter if I rob somebody because the insurance will pay -- those kinds of thoughts will lead you right back."
Award
The "Home for Good in Oregon" program received a 2005 excellence award
from the American Correctional Chaplains Association.
Copyright 2005 Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon
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