Partnership Is First of Its Kind in Va.
By Chris L. Jenkins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Fairfax County jail is partnering with a local nonprofit group to open an expanded job resource center inside the facility next week.
The collaboration will be the first of its kind in Virginia, although several localities across the country have experimented with the idea. The center will offer employment and job-training services to offenders about to return to the community from an institution that, on any given night, has a population of about 1,300 inmates, the most of any jurisdiction in the state.
The project will be an expansion of a job skills program run by the facility. Inmates will get counseling on how to look for and keep jobs and will be given lists of openings as they get close to being discharged. Some will be aided in getting such things as a commercial driver's license.
Participating inmates will be drawn from the jail's pre-release center, a 200-bed section that admits only nonviolent felons who have been screened for good behavior during their incarceration and have never been convicted of a sex crime.
In many cases, after inmates have completed the training and found a job, they will be allowed to work while serving the last portion of their sentence. While working outside the jail, they will be tracked with electronic monitors, and their earnings will go toward paying rent at the pre-release facility.
Local officials said the program is geared toward reducing recidivism rates. An ongoing study of the jail by George Mason University found that of 250 inmates followed after their release in 2003, about 40 percent were rearrested within one year.
"One of the top reasons why inmates return to jail or prison is that they can't find steady employment," said David Hunn, president of the SkillSource Group, the nonprofit organization that is collaborating with the county to run the center. The group runs several similar programs throughout the county that help released offenders get back on their feet.
June Tangney, a professor of psychology who led the GMU study, said inmates who participated in the jail's programs were less likely to be rearrested after being released.
Hunn said that the jobs program includes providing tax credits for employers who hire ex-offenders. The program is also insured, so that if released inmates steal or cause damage to the workplace, employers will be reimbursed.
The program is funded by state and private grants.
Hunn said the tight market could make finding a job more difficult for many former offenders. Northern Virginia's unemployment rate, well below the national average, is up over the past year. In May 2007, the region's unemployment rate was 2.1 percent. This May, it was 2.9 percent, and the national average was 5.2 percent.
Many of the jobs that recently released inmates could get easily in the past, such as construction, landscaping and other real estate-related occupations, have dried up. But Hunn said employers are expressing interest in the program's clients.
"Even in this economy, we're hoping that employers will still take a look," he said.
Jail officials said that the program will play a key role in getting inmates ready for discharge because inmates have complained that they are at a disadvantage in the job market.
"It's going to be a great help to us: They're able to offer things that we haven't been able to," said Eli Rejeili, a first lieutenant in the Fairfax Sheriff's Office, who runs its Pre-Release Center. "Early preparation is what we need to get these guys to be productive citizens again."
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