Re-Entry Program

My work is with the Re-Entry Program of the Orleans Parish Sheriff Department located in Orleans Parish Prison. Orleans Parish Prison (0PP) is located in downtown New Orleans; OPP is one of the largest correctional facilities in Louisiana. Despite its name, OPP operates like a county jail (Louisiana's parishes are equivalent to other states' counties). Like most county jails, OPP houses a large number of pre-trial detainees and inmates serving short misdemeanor sentences. Also OPP house some inmates with felony records. As of September 11, 2009 OPP was able to accommodate 2,545 inmates and serves as an overflow for the Louisiana Department of Corrections and the federal prison system (letter).

The Re-Entry Program is for men only, ages 18 years old to 65 years old. The purpose of the Re-Entry Program is to educate, motivate, and try to stimulate inmates who are in the process of ending their incarceration, and beginning their new lives into society. The primary goal of the Re-Entry Program is to avoid recidivism (a relapse into crime or inmates returning after leaving jail into previous undesirable behavior). This program also instills in inmates in the program how to become productive citizens who do not break the law and how to follow the rules made by the community in which we live.

Inmates in the Re-Entry Program are still in jail. They have not been released, and their time in jail is no longer than three years. These men are short term inmates who are serving misdemeanor sentences. During my work time in the Re-Entry Program I worked with sex-offenders who had served most of their jail time and had only ninety days left to go on their sentence time. The men in the Re-Entry Program are handpicked by members

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of the Sheriff Department, and the head of the Re-Entry Program. They have to display an

ability to want to change themselves.

The sex-offenders in the Re-Entry Program are unlike other inmates in Parish Prison because these men know when they are released one of the conditions of their release is to register with the state sex offender and child predator registry. A website is provided for public use by the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. The website contains the sex-offender's name, current address, employment, school attendance, and other information regarding the sex-offender (Louisiana State Police). Sex-offenders must also send out cards to citizens in the immediate community that they are moving into the neighborhood when they are released. As a worker with the Re-Entry Program one of my duties was to inform inmates of this law and their responsibility to obey the law or after being released the inmate may be returned back to jail or even prison. I found most of the men I worked with thought this law was against their constitutional rights. They felt because they had completed their jail time they were being punished more by letting everyone in the community know a "jail bird" was moving into the area, and the neighborhood people had to lock up their children from them. Many men in the program expressed to me society was punishing them over and over. Some said they did not believe they were sex offenders because the girls they had sex with did not tell them they were under age. One young man was eighteen when arrested after having sex with a girl that was thirteen but looked twenty. He said he felt because she had given her permission to have sex with him, he was not a sex-offender. he believed he should not be labeled for the rest of his life for a crime out of his control. He said he believed the girl should be

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punished also because she had contributed to him being in a crime. To him this was cruel and unusual punishment and against his constitutional rights.

Most criminals according to the Rational Choice Criminologists have a choice which is built on the Rational Choice theory, a classical theory which says crime is seen as a choice that is influenced by its costs and benefits (Summaries). If a person sees crime as a way to obtain goods quickly without working for those goods, than the person will engage in crime to obtain a quick way to satisfy his needs. I observed many of the sex offenders I worked with seem to prey on woman who were younger than them, or family members of these inmates, who were afraid to come forward and tell others of their actions that were against the law. Usually the unlawful activities of these men came to light when a stronger female of the victim reported the criminal. There was only one or two sex offenders in the group I worked with that had so-called consented sex with an underage girl. Most knew what they were doing was wrong.

In addition to this, the Rational Choice Criminologists says crime will be more likely to be deterred if its costs are raised especially if the costs are certain and immediate (Summaries). Convicted criminals who are in the Re-Entry Program have made a rational choice to engage in unlawful sexual activities. The Re-Entry Program seeks ways to change the mental outlook of these inmates, and try to make the inmate see that criminal ways are not the good way of life for them. Upon their return to society if the inmate continues their criminal sex-offender ways which are against the law, and other activities these men will be returned to jail immediately with possibly more severe prison or jail time. Inmates are told on a regular basis, the prison system will not allow a short term

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incarceration of them any longer, but a long term prison time without the benefits of parole. They are told their prison time in the future may not be a return to Parish Prison but future life at Angola State Prison.

This program started June 10, 2010. It is directed at the offender of the crime and not the victim of the crime, who has no say so in the program. There are two groups with fifty men in each group in the program. The group I was a part of was the first group. The individuals in the group that I worked with were faced with many challenges when reintegrating back into society. They talked about how this was a very difficult time for them. Often these men were faced with problems not only of being in jail but family problems as well. Some of them became clearly depressed when their family suffered death or sickness, especially a close relative. Others seemed clearly upset when their children did not do well in school or got into trouble, and they could not help them. Still others, who had close friends on the outside, displayed anger when they could not help the friends solve their