Chris Powell: Program for ex-cons in New Haven needs to include work as well as welfare

They could help clean up this.

New Haven from the south.

— Photo by Emilie Foyer

MANCHESTER, Conn.,

Being the source of all sorts of politically correct nuttiness even as its violent crime is atrocious and its schools don't work (because few of their students have competent parents), New Haven may be criticized for its new experiment with released prisoners. The city is awarding 20 of them a guaranteed income of $500 a month for a year to help them re-establish themselves on the right side of the law.

But the money is coming from a philanthropic grant, not from government, and only a big detail of the program is amiss, not the objective. Indeed, the objective is compelling. The program should be adjusted and implemented by state government throughout Connecticut.

With its largely impoverished, uneducated, unskilled, fatherless and welfare-dependent population, New Haven is a hub of crime, as Connecticut's other cities are. Every year the state prison system releases about 900 offenders back to the city as they complete their sentences. On average within three years about half of them are convicted of more crimes and sent back to prison. The true failure of rehabilitation in criminal justice is worse than that, since many released offenders commit more crimes but aren't caught.

That this "recidivism" has been so bad for so long does not make it any less of a disaster and excuse government's failure to do much about it. But this disaster is inevitable when uneducated, unskilled and demoralized men are returned to society without financial resources, a job, housing and medical insurance even as they carry the heavy handicap of a criminal record.

What's faulty about the experiment in New Haven is that the guaranteed income for the former prisoners is not linked to a guaranteed job, medical insurance and rudimentary housing. It's welfare when it should be work.

The Correction Department should be funded to provide much more job training to prisoners within two or three years of their likely release. But government should be able to find work even for the uneducated and unskilled.

For starters, Connecticut's roadsides, parks, railroad lines and other public areas are full of litter strewn about by slobs. A few dozen released prisoners could clean up a whole city in just a month and might feel pretty good about it if they were being paid, appreciated, and free of the fear of having no housing and medical insurance.

Connecticut's manufacturers are struggling to fill thousands of skilled positions and might provide internships and job-training to former prisoners who showed an interest. Hospitals might too. Churches, especially those in the cities, surely would assist a campaign to employ former prisoners.

With its guaranteed -income program New Haven has had its pick of the seemingly most rehabilitated and motivated former prisoners. Reintegrating other former prisoners will be much harder, and the public's reaction to former prisoners working visibly in public places, sometimes near children and the elderly, might not always be welcoming. So government will have to explain patiently why society must help former prisoners make something good of themselves. Many people will understand.

Of course there would be failures in such a program -- but not as many as there already are with released prisoners. Indeed, compared to the present disaster, the success of such a program would be virtually certain.

Then maybe state government could turn its attention to getting rid of its policies and practices that have turned the cities into poverty factories.

xxx

BRIDGEPORT FAILS AGAIN: Why has state government yet to see much progress from its longstanding policy of throwing ever-more money at Connecticut's impoverished cities and especially their schools?

There may have been a hint the other day from Bridgeport, where videographer Steve Ronin posted on the Internet a long video taken during his recent tour of the city's former Harding High School. Though the school was closed five years ago, it remains packed with valuable furnishings and equipment as if it is still operating.

The video shocked city officials. They thought that the school board had relocated the furnishings and equipment for continued use. But what should have been obvious wasn't done.

What's more shocking is that state officials still seem to consider Bridgeport capable of self-government.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Connecticut (CPowell@JournalInquirer.com).