Supportive Programs Crucial for Ex-Offenders’ Success, Says Parole Expert

Stable employment and housing helps lower the risk of ex-offenders returning to prison, said Garland Hunt, chairman of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Hunt and Marc Mauer, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, met with a joint Judiciary Committee Tuesday at the state Capitol. They also met with members of a task force organized by Gov. Chet Culver to look at the racial disparities in Iowa prisons.

“There’s two things we look at — employment and stable housing,” Hunt told the committee. “For every day an ex-offender is employed, the rate to re-arrest goes down by one percent.”

Marc Mauer and Garland Hunt

Rep. Wayne Ford (D-Des Moines) is executive director of the nonprofit Urban Dreams, which provides re-entry programs for ex-offenders. Ford brought the speakers to Iowa and arranged the meetings with lawmakers to discuss solutions to the state’s high black prison rate. Ford is co-sponsoring legislation with Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad (D-Des Moines) to create a Certificate of Rehabilitation to ease the employment restrictions ex-offenders face and show their fitness for employment. He is also pushing for state agencies to justify how their spending affects minority communities and for a minority impact statement to accompany changes to laws. A study by the Sentencing Project last year found that Iowa imprisons blacks at a rate that is 13.6 times that of whites — the largest such disparity in the nation.

Wayne Ford

Hunt, an attorney and advocate of involving the faith-based community in ex-offender re-entry programs, said several agencies and faith-based groups are working together on the Re-Entry Partnership Housing program. It provides housing and food for three months for ex-offenders at a cost of about $600 a month per ex-offender, which is paid for with money from the parole board and other agencies. About 383 people have participated in the program since July, he said. More than 60 percent were able to maintain stable housing and employment, which cuts down recidivism, he said.

“What you stated about the employment and the housing, I hadn’t thought of that much, but it just makes a whole lot of sense,” Sen. Keith Kreiman, D-Bloomfield. “If you’re not employed and don’t have a place to live, you’re probably a lot more likely to get back into trouble.”

Sen. David Hartsuch, R-Bettendorf, asked Hunt how Iowa might structure faith-based prison programs since a recent federal court decision had determined that Iowa can’t spend taxpayer money on faith-based prison programs.

Hunt, an ordained minister, suggested that faith-based groups could identify inmates and help them once they exit prison. Hunt said he was impressed by the Hansen House of Hospitality in Des Moines, which serves ex-offenders.

Georgia has the fifth-largest prison population in the nation with 54,000 inmates, Hunt said. About one in 15 adults in Georgia is under supervision by the department of corrections, he said. The average parolee is in his 30s, single and black, Hunt said. Georgia’s population is 30 percent black, but 62 percent of its prison population is black, he said.

“There’s a tremendous concern about the over-incarceration of African-Americans,” Hunt told the lawmakers. “You want to make sure your programs are mission-focused and that there’s accountability.”

Hunt also lauded Georgia’s housing program with members of Culver’s task force at a meeting Tuesday at the Iowa Department of Corrections.

Iowa Department of Human Rights Director Walter Reed said institutions are doing what they can, but the community is failing to help solve the problem.

“The question is when is Iowa going to get a backbone and put some money into these programs?” Reed said.