by Shia Michele Levitt
SLUG: Post-Prison Jobs
Levitt:
Mark Klass just got out after serving 9 years in prison. Before he was arrested, he worked at fast food restaurants and at an eyeglass store. But that was a decade ago. As Klass' release date approached, he got nervous whether anyone would hire him.
Act: Klass
"When you're incarcerated and you watch a lot of the news and you try to stay abreast, and I seen that the jobless rate, you know, it's tough. So I know if it's tough for regular person, for an ex-offender it's to be extremely tough."
Levitt:
Klass was released from prison four months ago and found a job helping other people get employment. Many others aren't so lucky. In President Bush's state of the union address, he proposed a federal initiative to help some of the thousands of newly released people re-join the workforce. Bush's funding would go toward vocational job training, mentoring services and transitional housing once a prisoner is released. It's part of the President's 2005 budget and is yet to be approved by Congress. But many working with prisoners are concerned whether help would come before or after their release. Julio Medina, the director of a job placement organization for ex-prisoners, says job training is not easy when many people may have not had a job in the last decade or ever.
Actuality: Medina
"You're not going to do that, after 10 years, trying change someone's mindset, overnight."
Levitt
Edmond Taylor, a job counselor at the Fortune Society who did time himself, says that his experience taught him that programs work best before people get out of prison.
Act: Taylor
"You should start training a person to be released and get a job as soon as he situated in a correctional facility. Why not take advantage of all this dead time to get the person ready to come back to society?"
Levitt:
When Taylor was released, hundreds of resumes led him to little more than a dozen job interviews. He was only able to keep going with the help of his family. It took Taylor 2 and a half years to find work. He says better training means better and faster job placement.
Act:Taylor
"If these vocational programs that the President's thinking about are only going to teach people how to do, how to perform in minimum wage jobs and not being able to advance, then it's a waste of money. People have to be given jobs and be taught to perform at jobs where there isn't a glass ceiling, where they're able to grow within a company."
Levitt:
Taylor hopes the President's proposal will go beyond vocational training. Among vocational programs inside New York prisons, training for low-paying custodial and other maintenance jobs have drawn the largest number of participants. For Taylor, the President's proposed funding, although a move in the right direction, is only a start.
Act:
"It's a drop in the bucket, you know, 300 million spread out over the entire United States for all the people coming out of prisons, I just don't think it's enough money."
Levitt:
If approved, the $300 million dollar proposal would be carried out over four years. I'm Shia Levitt for Columbia Radio News.
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