Are ex-offenders one answer to closing the state’s skills gap?

EYES ON THE FUTURE: Serving a 13-month sentence at the ACI for conspiracy, Jordan Cook is getting help from Pivot the Hustle, a free program run by Roger Williams University volunteers that provides contemporary workforce preparation for minimum-security inmates in work release. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
EYES ON THE FUTURE: Serving a 13-month sentence at the ACI for conspiracy, Jordan Cook is getting help from Pivot the Hustle, a free program run by Roger Williams University volunteers that provides contemporary workforce preparation for minimum-security inmates in work release. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Dwayne Gibson is 43, but has the work experience – five years – of someone much younger.

That’s because the Providence native served more than 13 years in the federal corrections system on charges of selling crack cocaine.

“You should see my resume now, though,” he said.

Prior to his release, with the help of a network of ex-offenders, Gibson secured a position at Pet Food Experts Inc. in Cumberland. Finding a job – his first – before his release date was a “top priority,” said the father of 10.

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The first time Gibson and manager Jeffrey Lavalley talked, neither knew what to expect. But Gibson recalled he “was willing to learn.” In the past five years he has moved up from simple jobs, such as loading trucks and taking orders, to driving the forklift.

“Now I’m the lead guy in the frozen-food department,” he said proudly.

But for many ex-offenders, the transition back to home and work is far less successful.

The Federal Interagency Reentry Council found ex-offenders earn an estimated 40 percent less after release than prior to their incarceration. In addition, they often lack basic skills or experience discrimination when re-entering or joining the mainstream workforce.

Rhode Island, like other states, has programs to remove barriers to re-entry and help keep ex-offenders from returning to prison by finding them employment. But its success to date has been hampered by outdated prison retraining, poor record-keeping by the state and in some cases a lack of employer awareness that such efforts even exist.

Yet state and federal corrections and law enforcement officials see ex-offenders as an underutilized pool of workers, especially in a state where employers have often complained about the challenges of finding motivated workers.

And they warn that President Barack Obama’s nationwide initiative to decrease the number of inmates in the U.S. corrections system will raise the stakes for local communities and statewide re-entry efforts designed to combat criminal recidivism.

According to the Rhode Island office of the U.S. Department of Justice, 600,000 inmates will be released across the nation in 2016, of which 3,000 will return to Rhode Island.

To draw attention to the issue – and the financial benefits and tax incentives available to those employers willing to hire ex-offenders – Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha and state Department of Corrections Director A.T. Wall will for the first time hold a joint summit on May 25.

“Everyone is coming back [from prison], and if they don’t have a job pretty quickly, they’re going to re-offend and go back in,” Neronha warned, noting the state’s high recidivism rate, which in 2010, the most recent year available, was 49 percent within three years of release.

But can ex-offenders really be an answer to closing the skills gap that has plagued many employers in the state?

COSTLY INCARCERATION

The debate in Rhode Island has been focused less on ex-offender re-employment than on what some government officials see as a bloated corrections system in need of reform.

“We are spending too much money and not getting the outcomes people deserve,” said Gov. Gina M. Raimondo. “Our recidivism rate is too high and too few people receive the help they need. … If we want to keep families and communities safe, if we want to help give every Rhode Islander the chance to lead productive lives and if we want to invest taxpayers’ dollars more efficiently and effectively, we have to institute real reforms,” she added.

According to RIDOC’s 2015 Fiscal Year Population Report, the state’s Adult Correctional Institutions held 3,183 inmates and processed releases for 3,397 inmates. All but 3.3 percent stayed in the state. Of those released, 42 percent returned to Providence or Pawtucket, with another 18 percent traveling to Cranston, Warwick and West Warwick.

A 2015 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the federal DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Assistance found Rhode Island spent $408.5 million on public-safety costs in fiscal 2014, 45 percent of which represented state corrections spending (roughly $184 million). Of the latter, 8 percent, or $15 million, was spent on probation and parole.

When divided among the 20,000 parolees registered in 2013, that amounted to $5 per person, per day.

Neither the state nor Neronha’s office could provide statistics to measure Rhode Island’s 49 percent 2010 recidivism rate against. Wall claims the state calculates recidivism differently than do other states. But a 2011 Pew Charitable Trusts study cited a recidivism rate for Rhode Island of 30.8 percent for 2004-2007, suggesting it is on the rise locally.

According to Neronha, Rhode Islanders will pay $217 million on corrections in fiscal 2016. One answer to curbing those costs, he says, is increasing employment opportunities to keep ex-offenders from returning to prison.

INCENTIVES TO HIRE

The state has three tax incentives to entice businesses to hire ex-offenders.

n The Work Opportunity Tax Credit was created as part of the 1996 Small Business Job Protection Act. It provides business with a $2,400 tax break for each ex-offender hired. In 2015 the DLT approved 136 applications and has processed a total of 307 for the tax credit since its inception.

n The On-the-Job Training incentive reimburses a company 50 percent of an employee’s wages for up to six months to cover his or her training.

n Work Immersion, the final state financial benefit, reimburses a company 50 percent of any wages paid for temporary work experiences assigned to unemployed adults.

Ex-offenders as well as any other job seeker can qualify for the OJT and Work Immersion incentives.

Wall, the state corrections chief, wants to improve the way his programs prepare inmates for the workforce. But he says ACI security measures make it difficult to make changes quickly.

“For many years we were averse to anything that was connected to a modem. We’re still pretty careful, but technology has evolved, and we need to start training offenders for the 21st century rather than the 19th [century] … when manufacturing flourished,” he added.

“I would like to see us have the ability to retool our industries programs so they will equip inmates with skills that are more relevant in the workforce now,” he said.

The ACI’s work-release program is designed solely for minimum-security inmates who have, among other eligibility requirements, completed one-sixth of their sentence, are not sentenced to life without parole and have not been convicted of a sex offense involving a minor.

But as of May 9, only 14.8 percent of 370 sentenced minimum-security prisoners were enrolled in the program, Wall said, in part because state legislators have been “leery about creating infrastructure that would support inmates going out into the community.”

Restrictions on how inmates can spend their earnings keep participation lower than it might otherwise be, he noted.

“A bill is in the General Assembly now that will remove those restrictions, so inmates can claim a greater share of wages and be more willing to join,” Wall added.

Before his release in March, 29-year-old East Providence resident Justin Thomas served three years of a six-year sentence for robbery.

Thomas entered prison with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication, but when it came time for work release he had no say in his placement.

Assigned to Glass America in Smithfield, building windows, Thomas knew nothing about the manufacturing industry and was not prepared for the physical nature of the position.

Working in that environment was a wakeup call.

Thomas realized, “If I don’t get my stuff together … hard labor is my only option. I can’t speak for everybody, but I want to avoid a life of hard labor.”

The position wasn’t a good match for him, and Thomas questions the motives of some outside contractors.

“A lot of those jobs have a history of working with the ACI. I appreciate and respect them for doing so, [but] sometimes I don’t know if they’re doing it for the right reason,” he said.

Eventually Thomas, like many other work-release participants, was laid off. While disappointed, he was grateful for the opportunity.

“There aren’t many jobs that will take you when you don’t just have a record, but are still incarcerated,” he said.

Current inmates, including 22-year-old Philadelphia native Jordan Cook, also would like to see more of an effort to match interests to work assignments.

Serving a 13-month sentence at the ACI for conspiracy, Cook says he’d prefer culinary work, but recently worked as a warehouse helper at American Surplus in East Providence.

“When I get out, I’ll definitely look for training in a career I want to pursue, [not] what they placed me in,” he said.

He is currently getting help from Pivot the Hustle, a free program run by Roger Williams University volunteers. The program provides contemporary workforce preparation for minimum-security inmates in work release.

Adriana Dawson, assistant dean of professional education & employer outreach, said RWU recognizes employers want more.

“Employers are looking for … an entity that can further validate there has been a curriculum or competencies put in place to ensure individuals who are going to successfully re-enter the [workforce] have been given the proper tools, resources and guidance to ensure a smooth transition,” she said.

Begun in January 2016 with 30 male inmates, Pivot the Hustle teaches inmates how to write cover letters and résumés in work release.

Dawson believes involving higher education in workforce re-entry is vital.

“If it’s talent that needs to be fostered and cultivated, then industries need to look to us … to provide those supports, because no industry can do it alone,” she said.

In addition to work release, RIDOC offers more than 300 skills-based training courses, including hair cutting, upholstery and carpentry.

Barry Weiner, assistant director of rehabilitative services for state corrections, agrees with Dawson. But he said his first priority is modernizing the department’s retraining efforts, which have been hampered by lack of funding and poor record-keeping.

“Only recently … have we been able to focus time and resources on improving our technical infrastructure to handle data tracking in more sophisticated ways,” he said.

GETTING WORD OUT

Businesses across the state have mixed reviews of the success to date of state efforts to integrate ex-offenders into the workforce.

Tech Collective Executive Director Tom Falcone said he was unaware of the state programs and hiring incentives.

“We process folks [for training], but criminal background checks are not part of our regular program,” so the group very well could have had ex-offenders in it and not known it, he said.

Falcone thinks programs like these are only successful on a case-by-case basis, when the individual, the company and the position are properly matched.

The ex-offender hiring program at Pet Food Experts predates Lavalley, regional director of operations, who admitted it took him some time to get over his personal bias.

As a younger manager, the first thing he noticed on an application was a criminal record.

Lavalley said Gibson is an example of the potential of job-training programs for ex-offenders.

Pet Food Experts employs 13 ex-offenders in the 120-person operations department of the Rhode Island plant, three of whom hold supervisory roles. Operations is currently the only department that employs ex-offenders, explained Lavalley.

He believes more employers aren’t willing to hire ex-offenders because they’re concerned about liability, but companies shouldn’t be afraid to take a chance hiring ex-offenders simply because of their history, he said.

“We’re not doing anything out of the ordinary. …We don’t have any altruistic motives. We’re not a social agency. We’re just looking for people willing to work,” he said.

John Lombari, president of Smithfield-based Rhode Island Carbide Tool Co., says it is difficult to find skilled workers in his business, so most new hires need training.

Two years ago, through Real Jobs RI-funded ManUp 2 Careers, Lombari hired an ex-offender, with partial training from New England Institute of Technology, who turned out to be one of his best employees.

“He is an outstanding employee, very bright, gives 110 percent … every penny was well-spent,” said Lombari.

ManUp 2 Careers CEO and founder Rhonda Price said hers is a model program because she works with ex-offenders one-on-one. The 5-year-old organization, which currently has eight enrolled participants, provides pre-vocational and life-skills training and counseling.

In November 2015, ManUp was awarded $75,000 in state funding from Real Jobs RI. To date $9,018.29 has been paid. That’s because on May 5 Department of Labor and Training Director Scott Jensen announced ManUp would be audited, due to the organization’s relationship with another embattled program, Alternative Educational Programming Inc. State grant funding to the latter was frozen after questions were raised about its operation following the abrupt May 3 resignation from the General Assembly of former House Finance Committee Chairman Raymond Gallison, a Bristol Democrat with ties to the organization.

Robert Kalaskowski, a DLT employee who worked with ManUp on its state grant, says the program should be seen as one solution to the state’s high recidivism rate.

“Employers say these [ex-offenders] are some of the best employees they have,” he said.

Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, thinks the training programs in the state have been successful on the whole, but says some challenges remain.

“It’s a matter of businesses not knowing what this population has to offer,” she explained.

She’s not sure the current retraining is preparing these potential workers to meet the needs of enough employers to put a real dent in the skills gap. But she thinks it is worth the effort for the state and businesses to find out.

“Talent is a huge issue in business today. Whether it’s highly skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled employees, employers are always trying to find the best match,” he said. “We have a population here where it’s in their economic best interest to be self-sufficient or they will end up back in prison, increasing the recidivism rate.”

The May 25 summit, to be held at the Radisson Hotel in Warwick, will highlight the financial incentives and potential benefits of hiring ex-offenders. State and federal officials also will be on hand to discuss support systems in place and help employers who are interested to get involved.

It’s a “mistake,” Neronha said, not to consider ex-offenders a resource. “You simply can’t sideline [millions of] people. … No wonder you can’t fill some of the jobs you need.”

Wall said employers who have taken the risk and hired ex-offenders, “come away with a different impression … [when] they have a chance to size up the person and ask uncomfortable questions.”

Thomas, the former inmate laid off after going through work release, has begun his own video-production company focusing on weddings and music. He said the upcoming summit demonstrates effort by RIDOC to improve re-entry of ex-offenders into the workforce.

But the onus is on everyone involved, the state, employer and inmate or ex-offender to make it work, he says.

“Like a relationship, if [all] parties aren’t committed to doing what they need to in order to move forward, it won’t work,” he said. •

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