The award-winning Safer Foundation is contracted to manage Crossroads, a transitional program funded by the State of Illinois. Under the contract, the Illinois Department of Corrections was obligated to fund the program for $6.9 million in fiscal year 2003. The governor’s 2003 budget proposes to not fund the obligation. As a result, the facility will close.
This means that 1,000 paroled men will return to their communities in 2003 without jobs, drug treatment, GEDs, anger management, domestic and violence counseling and other support services.
Crossroads is less than a block away from our congressional office. The facility is located within a community where 40 percent of all IDOC inmates are released. Crossroads is in a community where studies have indicated that 70 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 45 are ex-offenders.
We are actually and ironically at a crossroads because more and more people are leaving prisons and jails without the necessary support systems.
More than 630,000 people will be released from federal and local prisons this year, leaving behind 2 million and joining 4.6 million already on parole or on probation.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported that 62 percent of those released from state prisons will be re-arrested within three years and 40 percent will be re-incarcerated. In Illinois, the recidivism rate is a staggering 43.7 percent.
Many of these people are not prepared for the demands of normal everyday life.
For the last few decades, the nation has taken a strong position on crime with such approaches as zero tolerance toward crime, “three strikes and you’re out” and mandatory minimums. Record numbers of people were captured, convicted and given long sentences to serve in prison.
This ugly dynamic increases the nation’s recidivism rate and continues to jeopardize the public safety of our citizens.
Neighborhoods across the nation are absorbing the economic and social costs of reintegrating hundreds of thousands of ex-offenders into society each year. The Justice Department reported that the cost of crime to victims is approximately $450 billion a year.
As we consider the social and economic costs on our communities, we must hold onto programs such as Crossroads that are working and, at the same time, seek out and implement other models and approaches.
Like Crossroads, the Public Safety Ex-offender Self-Sufficiency Act of 2002 addresses several serious needs and barriers this population must overcome in order for successful community reintegration.
The legislation calls for the development of a comprehensive pilot program to provide independent living and self-sufficiency services in a managed environment.
Through the efforts of the 7th District of Illinois Task Force on Ex-offenders, we confirmed that housing still remains a key barrier. In fact, securing safe and affordable housing is a stabilizing force for the formerly incarcerated. By supporting initiatives like Crossroads and the Public Safety Self-Sufficiency Act of 2002, we have stepped up to the plate.
Community residents, legislators and organizations are organizing in the State of Illinois, from Champaign to Chicago, and all over this country, from New York to California, to support legislative and program initiatives that help ex-offenders to successfully reintegrate back into community life.
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Now, more than ever, is the time for the State of Illinois to step up to the plate, rather than step back.