From cellblock to your block
When Norfolk County Sheriff Michael Bellotti arrived on the scene in 1999, there were 666 inmates in the Dedham House of Correction. Now, there are more than 800 with another 160 housed in other facilities because of overcrowding. Some sleepin wooden "canoes" laid out in the common area of a cell block. Others bunk in the gym.
The bottom line is that more criminals are being sent away -- and released -- than ever. And rather than simply setting men free with just a handshake, Bellotti's office is starting a series of innovative programs to reintroduce them into society with a set of skills. "Now, the emphasis is on who's coming back to your community," he says.
It's true that prisoners are society's least sympathetic subjects, particularly where tax dollars are concerned. But all inmates at the Norfolk County House of Correction are eventually going to be released, and law-abiding citizens have a stake in how they do out on the streets. Our quality of life depends on offenders not reoffending.
"The way we do that is to watch them, create a structure around them and give them opportunities to succeed," says Bellotti. The "watching them" part is important: for the first time, Bellotti's staff is working closely with local police to let them know who is coming back, and when. (Many of them come from and return to the Quincy area). Likewise, offenders know that police and probation officials will be keeping a close eye on them; the idea is that it won't be as easy for them to melt into the crowd.
The sheriff's office has hired veteran prosecutor John Kivlan to help with the reentry programs. Kivlan was first assistant district attorney under William Delahunt and successfully handled several high-profile cases, including the first-degree murder conviction of John Salvi, who in 1994 shot to death two women at two Boston area women's health clinics. When William Keating took office, Kivlan joined the state Parole Board, from which he recently resigned.
In his new part-time job with Bellotti, Kivlan will serve as liaison to the courts, parole, probation and police officials, as well as the state Legislature and county officials. Recently, Governor Mitt Romney appointed him to the Governor's Commission on Criminal Justice Innovative, Re-Entry and Post Release Supervision Sub-Committee. (Could they have made the name any longer?) Kivlan, who has prosecuted some of the county's most violent criminals, says he is happy to be working on the other end of the equation, with inmates who are ready for release.
"It will allow me to focus all of my experience in an area that has often been seen as the end game rather than a starting point for public safety efforts," he says.
The programs include working with St. Francis House in Boston to clean the men up. Several weeks before inmates are released, counselors come in to teach them sobriety skills and anger management techniques. Inmates learn how to interview for jobs, are provided suitable clothing for interviews and are referred to internships.
On release day -- a critical time, when things could go either way -- staffers pick up the inmates at the prison and take them to "recovery homes," where they continue to follow them for several weeks. The eventual goal is job placement. Higher-risk clients will be met at the prison door by police, who will take them to meet a probation officer.
In another program, professors from Quincy College, and Massasoit and Mass Bay community colleges are sending professors in to teach inmates. About 60 inmates who have participated since 2002 have left prison with an acceptance letter to at least one college. One 37-year-old man was accepted at UMass-Boston, where he hopes to receive a certificate as a drug and alcohol abuse counselor, "to try to give back to a population he can identify with," says Bellotti.
Yet another program focuses on substance abuse, offering an intense six-to-12-month program designed to get and keep men clean when they're released. Skills such as relapse prevention, health education, and parenting are also taught.
Of course, no one can force inmates into any of the programs; they're all voluntary. But officials target repeat offenders who seem to want a change. The hope is that the programs will lower the crime rate and the cost of housing prisoners, and make the streets safer for the rest of us.
It makes sense to Kivlan, who used to see repeat offenders in Superior Court. As a prosecutor, he'd "leave the case at the courthouse" upon conviction. "You'd have no idea what happened to these people after they left [prison]," he says. "But they're coming back into the community. More than 70 percent of those here have prior commitments and some of those have three or four priors."
Kivlan considers the effort a human services and law enforcement issue. "We need to once and for all try to make them succeed," he says. He hopes police departments will assign a reentry officer to watch the released men, who often have been convicted of crimes such as auto theft, breaking and entering, assault and battery, drug violations, and domestic violence.
"We hope these programs will serve as a deterrent to some degree, unlike in the past, when no one was paying attention after people were released," says Kivlan. If they reoffend, he adds, police should be able to find out faster. Inmates will find out faster, too, that "this is a whole new ball game, that this is what's going to happen if you reoffend," Kivlan says.
The beauty of the program is that it gives those men who want to succeed a new chance to do so. But if they don't, they are put on notice that they will pay the price. We can only hope that it works, mostly for the sake of tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who are sick of being preyed on by those who have no regard for others.
Bella English writes from Milton. She can be reached at 617-929-8770 or via e-mail at english@globe.com.
