By John Eby
Dowagiac Daily News

Cass and Van Buren counties are riding the Oct. 1 third wave of MPRI, the Michigan Prison Re-Entry initiative, joining Berrien, part of eight pilot counties, and a second round of seven counties in October 2006, Peggy Schaffer, Michigan Works regional coordinator, told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon.
 

As she also told the Cass County Board of Commissioners Jan. 18, MPRI represents a "complete shift in thinking" about prisons, making parole officers more social workers to curb recidivism and to shore up battered budgets, since it costs $30,000 a year to incarcerate someone versus $2,500 in annual community services to better equip inmates returning to society.

"That's a huge savings to the Department of Corrections," said Schaffer, a Zeeland native who lives in Benton Harbor, where her husband coaches basketball for Lake Michigan College. She earned a master's degree in criminal justice from Grand Valley State University.

Michigan ranks fifth nationally for the size of its prison system, though it is not the fifth-largest state.

"We house more prisoners per population than any of our Midwest neighbors," Schaffer said. "One factor is the get-tough-on-crime initiative that we all supported back in the 1980s and '90s. Now we're paying the price for that."

State corrections costs taxpayers $1.8 billion annually, with the department housing felony probation, parole and prisons asking for $1.9 billion in its next budget.

"It's one of the governor's largest line items in her budget," yet "48 percent return to prison within two years. About half fail on parole. That's not a very great success rate."

Each year, 11,000 prisoners are released back into their communities, including 247 returning to Berrien County, 77 to Van Buren County and 49 to Cass County.

Schaffer, who spoke at Elks Lodge 889 as guest of Board of Commissioners Chairman Robert Wagel, R-Wayne Township, says, "The number-one predictor of success amongst the parole population is employment. Get any job for any amount of time and the recidivism rate drops 21 percent just like that. If they keep that job for 30 days, it falls further, to about 18 percent. A year, 80 percent. Employment is important from supporting themselves to the confidence they feel and taking away spare time with that crowd that got them in trouble in the first place."

Berrien County qualified for the MPRI pilot project "because of the sheer number of return offenders compared to the overall population," along with Wayne and Macomb counties in metropolitan Detroit.

Wayne County singlehandedly receives 40 percent of all return offenders in Michigan.

Counties added last fall were Oakland, St. Clair, Saginaw, Washtenaw, Jackson, Calhoun and Muskegon.

The 15 counties selected for the first two stages account for 85 percent of all repeat offenders.

As for why the prison failure rate runs so high, Schaffer said once time is served, prisoners are released with the clothes on their back, a bus ticket home and a 30-day prescription supply, along with instructions to report to a parole agent.

"I hate to tell you this," she says, "but there are few in this room who would be able to follow all the rules set by the parole board."

When they have no place to live, cannot find a job or relapse into substance abuse, "They violate a condition of their parole or commit a new crime and are sent back" behind bars.

MPRI's "vision" is that every inmate be equipped with the tools necessary to succeed in their community.

MPRI's "mission" is to cut crime by implementing a "seamless plan of services and supervision" delivered through collaboration.

"These are residents of your county," Schaffer says. "They started in your county and are being returned to your county. We do not recruit offenders or say, 'Hey! Upper Peninsula. Come on down, we've got the lake and the casino coming!' If you committed your crime in Cass County, you return to Cass County."

The initiative is designed to follow prisoners through their entire incarceration as a "captive audience," Schaffer says, "and help them with their transition. Public safety is the number-one goal," followed by bettering the 52-percent success rate.

"Transition teams" pull in community involvement.

"We interview guys nine months before they get out," she said. "What do you still need to be successful? With their input and your community knowledge, we create a re-entry plan. They're coming with appointments set with service providers. When they're released from prison, they meet with their parole officer and go over that plan one more time."

MPRI partners with tri-county Michigan Works, which is the grant fiduciary; Lewis Cass Intermediate School District for adult education; Michigan Rehabilitative Services for physical, mental or emotional disabilities; and Lake Michigan College.

Sixty percent of those released from prison battle substance abuse histories.

"Maybe they're sex offenders and they can't stay with the family they left," she said, "or they have burned all their bridges with friends, so they're technically homeless. It's a high-risk population.

"We work with Residential Services of Southwest Michigan and Peter's House, which is a transitional living facility in Benton Harbor, for housing. Some of these are very specific to Berrien County. As we're creating our plan for Cass County, this is where all of you come in - to direct me to services you have in your county so we can start talking to providers and create the same support system for offenders returning to Cass County."

Schaffer addressed some of the myths and misconceptions bred by trying to help parolees.

"You're not allowed out early," she said. "We're not soft on crime. Several guys have come to me and wanted out of MPRI because we make them do too much. I take that as a huge compliment. We're very hard on these guys because we want them to succeed. Starting Oct. 1, we're targeting medium- to high-risk offenders because studies show that the more programming you shove at a low-risk offender, that increases their recidivism rate."

Within MPRI's first year, "Berrien County saw a 40-percent reduction in the amount of returns to prison," she said, working with men whose average age was 37.

"Maybe when you left, computers weren't a big deal," she said. "Now you need one for everything, including getting online for job postings."

Part of her job is educating residents about the population returning from prison.

While some industries balk at employing convicted criminals, Cass Commissioner Minnie Warren, D-Pokagon Township, operates Mintech, a company in Niles' industrial park which employs Schaffer's clients - 12 of her 22 employees earlier this year.

"When you hear 'sex offender,' you want to run away and hide, but they can be the guy walking home from the bar who decides to relieve himself on the side of the gas station. That's indecent exposure, now suddenly you're a sex offender. It can be someone 18 years old with a girlfriend who's 16 and now you have to register and have a stigma. Not every sex offender is a predator or someone who can't be rehabilitated. As people from our community who made a mistake, they deserve a second chance," Schaffer said.

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