Currently, there are almost 170,000 people incarcerated in California prisons. That's about 70,000 more than California prisons were built to hold. One reason for that overcrowding is the revolving door that sends ex-convicts on parole right back to jail.
When inmates are released from California prisons, more than 70% return either for committing new crimes or for violating the conditions of their parole. That’s the nation’s highest recidivism rate.
Both Oakland and San Francisco have created reentry programs designed to help ex-cons find jobs and repair their lives, but the success of any program comes down to each individual.
KALW’s Nancy Mullane traced the stories of just-released parolees leaving San Quentin State Prison. She wanted to find out what challenges and opportunities they face and try to understand why California’s recidivism rate is so high.
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NANCY MULLANE: When San Quentin releases prisoners, as it does just about every morning at the San Rafael bus depot, it only takes a few minutes for a prisoner to go from lock-down to freedom.
At about 8 o’clock, a white van bearing a big gold star with the California Department of Corrections logo on a royal blue background pulls up into a parking space.
An armed guard jumps out of the drivers seat and quickly makes his way over to the van’s sliding door. He pulls it open.
One-by-one, a half dozen men wearing identical pale grey sweatsuits step out of the van and up to the guard who by now is holding a stack of legal white envelopes. The men call out their name and destination. The guard flips through the stack of envelopes. He hands each of them an envelope with their name on the front and points them in the direction of the idling mass transit buses. The men run to catch them. Vallejo. Richmond. Alameda.
Standing on the steps of one of the buses, clutching their white envelopes, some of the parolees say they’re glad to be out.
PRISONER 1: I’ve been coming in and out so much it’s the same. It feels the same so I’m gonna get on the bus and just take it easy.
PRISONER 2: Feels good. Sixteen months is a pretty long time.
PRISONER 3: Oh it’s great. Blessed to be free. You know I have faith in God that he will provide a way for me so … hopefully I get out there, find a job, get employed and get back into my education and family.
MULLANE: Looking forward to it?
PRISONER 3: Looking forward to it. Absolutely…
Then, just as quickly as it all began, it’s over. The inmates take their seats. The buses pull away from the depot. The guards light up cigarettes.
GUARD: Once they get on a bus or a taxi cab, they’re no longer our responsibility. They are the responsibility of the parole department.
The guards put out their cigarettes, get back in their vans and drive away. The release took less than five minutes. The prisoners now join the 127,000 parolees in the state. They’re free to get off the bus anywhere they wish. The one thing they must do by the next business day is contact their parole agent.
For parolees assigned to Alameda County, the CDCR offices are in a big white building in a business park out by the Oakland Airport. In California, most parole agents carry an average of caseload of 70 to 80 parolees each. Parole Agent Trudy Ward says when a prisoner is paroled, she gets a stack of papers from CDCR telling her all about her new charge.
PAROLE AGENT TRUDY WARD: When they come out of custody, we’ve already got an idea who it is that we’re dealing with because normally we get a pre-parole plan, so we've already got an idea who it is that we're dealing with, we just haven’t met that person.
That can include curfews, who they can and cannot see and where they can go. But Ward says the agents try to make a personal connection.
WARD: Usually what we’ll do is we’ll go to their house. We’ll meet their families and we’ll find out what kind of issues the person may have. He may have residential issues. He may have drug problems. Whatever the issues are, we’re prepared to deal with it. Now also, all parolees coming out of custody must attend a PACT meeting.
PACT stands for Parole Orientation Program Services. The CDCR holds PACT meetings throughout the state. For years, Agent Ward has been administering Alameda County’s meeting every Wednesday morning.
Seventy-two newly released parolees file into the meeting room. After signing in and taking a seat, another parole agent tells the rules to the mostly African American male population in a "don’t mess with me" manner. No hats, no sunglasses, no pagers, no cell phones, no eating and no sleeping.
Lining the room are representatives from the City of Oakland and community based organizations who have come to talk to the parolees about services they offer such as housing, food, education and job training. Over the last seven years, the number of representatives has risen from just a few to dozens.
The first person to speak to the group is Kevin Grant. He’s a former convict and is now coordinator of the City of Oakland’s violence prevention network. He talks straight to the newly freed parolees about staying out and staying clean.
KEVIN GRANT: Now here go the thing. Can we swing a mop? Can you buff a floor? Can you work a kitchen? A.M. kitchen group. Now tell the truth, how many days of work did you miss? How many times was you late? We in the penitentiary working hard for six cent an hour won’t miss a day of work flipping every pancake in Susanville and won’t come take a job at IHOP on East 14th … ain’t something wrong with that? Real wrong with that.
When the talk ends, the parolees rush up to the representatives sitting at tables in the front of the room. They’re excited and hungry for the job training they’ve been promised. Then the reps leave and the parolees are left to find their way home. Many start walking through the empty office park looking for a bus. A few men stand around in the parking lot looking like they have no where to go. John Davis is standing by himself under a tree. He says it’s his seventh time out on parole.
JOHN DAVIS: First time San Quentin, Folsom, Soledad, Tracy and this last time I just came home, June 26th, that was San Quentin.
Davis looks out flatly over the parking lot. He says this time it’s going to be different. He’s going stay out. But to do so, he says he needs one thing.
DAVIS: I need a job. I’m trying to find a job. That’s how I’m gonna stay out. Stay off the streets and just get a job. I’m a grandfather now and I just want to see my kids. Be around my kids, see them grow up, and everything like that. So I’m just tired of going back and forth. Time to change my life. Ain’t gonna get no better til I do something different.
By now, Grant with the City of Oakland has made his way out to the parking lot too. He says many parolees want to get into programs – they want something to eat, a safe place to sleep and some training so they can get a job and stay out of trouble. But he says, he’s had to turn many parolees away because the programs are all full.
GRANT: CDCR is on the football field and the enforcement with all the helmets, gear, shoulder pads and then they ask recovery and treatment to come on the field and we don’t even have cleats. We’re in t-shirts. We get very little funding.
But rehabilitation just got some new funding. In May, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed thePublic Safety and Offender Rehabilitation Services Act into law. The legislation devotes $50 million toward programs for rehabilitating prisoners statewide. But that’s not the real thrust of the legislation. The state will spend more than $7 billion constructing more beds in jails and prisons. The law also permits the involuntary transfer of thousands of prisoners to out-of state private prisons.
Grant says if more of the $7 billion were spent on rehab programs, many of the new beds in prisons wouldn’t be needed.
GRANT: Give us what you have to compete and me and a few other people here will turn this thing around. It’s not difficult. People say it’s not working. I think well maybe it is working for who it’s supposed to be working for cause it sure ain’t working for this population.
Still, the system is slowly changing direction. With state prisons overcrowded and recidivism high, parole agents are sending more parolees with technical violations such as failing a drug test or missing a meeting with their agent, into rehab programs instead of back to prison.
For those who have been incarcerated staying an ex-convict is the challenge. With limits on jobs and housing, and the stigma attached to having done time, making it outside the walls is a struggle for the parolees and the communities they return to.
For KALW News, in Oakland, I’m Nancy Mullane.
