Vermonters help ease life on the outside: Towns trying to keep ex-cons on right path

[zippy890]

Source: Boston Globe

BARRE, Vt. - Vermont corrections officials are trying a radical new strategy to reintegrate the state's worst offenders into society: Team them up with groups of students, parents, businesspeople, and retirees in the towns they return to after prison, and let these surrogate families and friends show them how they can fit in again.

Modeling their efforts on a successful Canadian program, towns across Vermont are matching felons who have served time in prison for sexually abusing children, beating up family members, dealing drugs, and other offenses with artists, barbers, lawyers, teachers, and retirees. The volunteers help the returning offenders find jobs and apartments, give them rides and advice, and socialize with them. The idea, which is backed by studies of the Canadian program, is that former inmates who feel connected to the places where they live are less likely to break laws again.

The Vermont Department of Corrections is one of the first in the United States to embrace the approach, using a three-year $2 million federal grant it received in 2003, said Derek Miodownik, the grant manager.

Support teams, called "circles of support and accountability," meet weekly to check on former prisoners in Newport, St. Johnsbury, Barre, Montpelier, and Brattleboro. Each offender works with a small team of volunteers, who begin meeting with the offender before he or she leaves prison. The teams are supervised by local community justice centers, state-funded agencies that work with crime victims and offenders. Paid coordinators, who are employed by the centers, lead the groups and help make sure offenders stay on track. The offenders have been released from prison under state supervision; all have counselors or probation officers who also keep tabs on them.


Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2007/11/24/vermonters_help_ease_life_on_the_outside/

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Good for Vermont for trying this. Instead of condemning and ostracizing ex-convicts, connecting them to the community with supervision seems more likely to keep them going forward, not backward.

[gateley]

1. This is wonderful! Thanks for posting this. There but for fortune....nt

[ChazII]

2. Sounds like a program that more states should look consider. n/t

[catrose]

3. kick

great idea

[Danger Mouse]

4. Wow, rehabiliation rather than retribution!

What a novel concept...for America.
Hope it catches on.

[lildreamer316]

5. A big, enthusiastic, K&R!

I hope this is the start of something good.

[killbotfactory]

6. you make us proud, Vermont

[Auntie Bush]

7. And the prisoners should be studying while in prison and learn

some job skills. When people think someone cares about someone it is returned 2 fold. Good for VT. They should have a very small recidivism
rate and the plan sounds fantastic. It's about time!

[truthisfreedom]

8. Rather than learning how to commit more crimes.

[Quantess]

9. This sounds like a really great idea.

I think Vermont sounds like a nice place, and I'd like to visit someday soon.

[gorbal]

10. I love Vermont

As long as violent child rapists aren't encluded among their numbers, I'm all for it.

[customerserviceguy]

11. I had some qualms myself

when I read about sex offenders and students in the same paragraph.