SEPTEMBER 2005 :: LAW & POLITICS

Arrested Development
Laws Make It Tough for Ex-Cons Trying to Re-Enter Society

By Gary Fields
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

In the kitchen of an Applebee's restaurant in Queens, N.Y., Jacqueline Smith has been a model hire. In less than two years working as a cook, she got a promotion to supervisor, doubled her salary and won the award for employee of the year.

Her success hasn't come easy. Ms. Smith is an ex-convict who served more than nine years for transporting crack cocaine. Since being released in July 2003, she has struggled with basic necessities such as finding affordable housing and getting a valid state ID card.

A single parent with a steady but low-paying job, Ms. Smith would normally be considered a prime candidate for public-housing assistance, but she knows the odds are against her. Local housing rules bar ex-felons from living in public housing for six years after completing their sentence. So every night around midnight, Ms. Smith travels an hour to a Manhattan shelter for female ex-convicts, where she and her daughter have been living for more than a year.

"It's one battle after the next-trying to obtain housing, trying to obtain employment," Ms. Smith says. "I want a second chance. I want people to see I made mistakes, but I am making it right."

The Price You Pay

Not surprisingly, people who have been locked up for many years, often poorly educated and lacking in financial support, face a range of obstacles to re-entering society. Yet some of the biggest are put there by federal, state and local governments, including hurdles to getting student loans, public housing and other forms of government assistance.

For years, the thinking among law-enforcement officials and politicians was that this was the price people should pay for breaking the law. Now there is an emerging belief that the larger price is being paid by society, since the practical barriers facing ex-prisoners make it more likely that they will slip back into a life of crime.

Two-thirds of ex-felons return to police custody within three years of their release, for new crimes or for probation or parole violations, according to Justice Department studies. U.S. taxpayers spent $60 billion on corrections in 2002 at the local, state and federal levels, up from $9 billion two decades earlier.

Aside from public-housing restrictions, many former felons find they need special waivers to get licensed in vocations they learned while serving time. Some find their attempts to get an education are thwarted by laws barring loans to those convicted of a crime. Still others can stumble into technical violations that send them back to prison, such as reporting late for a meeting with a probation officer. For those who have completed long sentences, the most frustrating barrier is also the most basic-getting a legitimate ID, such as a driver's license.

"One barrier may not be that big a deal," says Debbie Mukamal, director of the prisoner re-entry institute at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. But usually, it's several, she says, adding: "You can't get housing, you have child-support [payments to make], you can't get ID and no one will hire you. Cumulatively, that sends a signal: You're not wanted."

After years of pushing for tougher sentences, lawmakers are rethinking their approach. The Second Chance Act, introduced in Congress recently, would provide more than $80 million for programs to help ex-cons re-enter society.

Kellie Mann Owens might have benefited from a key part of the bill: a provision ensuring that ex-offenders can be licensed in jobs they trained for in prison. In 1993, Ms. Owens obtained LSD for her ex-boyfriend and mailed it to him in Georgia. He got caught and cooperated with authorities; he was sentenced to two years while she received 10.

Ms. Owens was determined to learn a skill so she could land a job when she left the Alderson, W.Va., federal prison. So she joined the prison's all-woman firefighting team, a group that provides fire protection for the prison and backup for other local fire squads. She eventually rose to the fire team's top rank of lieutenant, garnering 300 hours of training and 100 hours at the scenes of actual fires near the prison. In January 2001, President Clinton granted her clemency on his last day in office.

After eight years in prison, she left Alderson for her parents' home in Alpharetta, Ga., confident of getting work at a firehouse in one of Atlanta's booming suburbs. She filled out each job application truthfully, noting she was a felon. But state law bars hiring former felons.

Last year, she moved to Hawaii and started a catering business with her husband, whom she had met in high school. The business didn't fly so they plan to try again in Mississippi.

For many ex-convicts wanting to start anew, the first step is trying to get an education. But while 63% of all undergraduates receive some form of financial aid, money isn't easy to come by for ex-felons. Emily Wheeler, of Kenosha, Wis., says she was arrested Aug. 5, 2003, for growing and selling marijuana with her boyfriend. Nineteen years old and newly pregnant, she received a sentence of three months in jail and three years on probation-reasonable, given that "I did screw up," she now says.

After she was released in January 2004, she applied to take classes in word-processing and other office skills at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha. "I was filling out the [financial aid] application and I got to question 35. It asked me if I'd been convicted of a drug felony," she says. "I was totally halted right there." Federal law states that first-time offenders convicted on drug-possession or drug-trafficking charges are ineligible to receive financial aid for as long as two years after their convictions.

"I understand their concern," she says. "A college campus is a perfect place to sell drugs, but I also know I can't move forward in my life without an education and a good job." She now earns $7 an hour at a frozen-custard shop.

Stuck Halfway

For Ms. Smith, the Applebee's cook, finding housing for herself and her teenage daughter has been the toughest challenge. Upon being released in July 2003 from the women's prison in Danbury, Conn., Ms. Smith headed for a halfway house. Like many prisoners released before their sentence is completed, Ms. Smith was required to find a job in 15 days or face the possibility of being returned to prison to finish her last six months.

She found a job quickly at a clothing store but switched after a few months to work for Applebee's, where she could use the culinary certificate she'd earned in training in prison.

Ms. Smith has been trying to apply for subsidized housing. The federal government has a small number of restrictions against ex-felons living in public housing. However, local housing authorities are able to impose their own restrictions, and those can be fairly broad.

Howard Marder, spokesman for the New York City Housing Authority, says there are virtually no vacancies in the city in public housing and with about 136,000 applications pending, it is unlikely that someone with a felony record would get in. Besides, ex-felons are ineligible for public housing for six years after the completion of their sentence, including probation. Ms. Smith, who will be on probation another three years, won't even be eligible until 2014.

Do you think the hiring, education and housing restrictions on former felons are good or bad for society? Write to us.