Even in a good job market, the most difficult to employ are those with a criminal record and a minimal employment history.And if you’re a black male in Wisconsinwith a criminal record, you have only a 5% chance of getting a callbackfrom an employer when searching for a job.
So when the Felmers O.Chaney Correctional Center was opened in 2000, at 30th and Hadleystreets, its mission to help soon-to-be-released inmates find work wasthought to be one solution to a difficult problem. The facility wouldhouse only those inmates who would benefit most from comprehensivesupport services that would help them find jobs before they arereleased. The idea was that these work experiences would help inmatesin their transition after incarceration and prevent newly releasedinmates from returning to a life of crime.
Now, almost nineyears later, that original mission is in dispute. While the Departmentof Corrections (DOC) maintains that work-support programming is beingoffered to inmates at acceptable levels, the center’s communityadvisory board argues that services for inmates have diminished at theChaney facility. The board also argues that the DOC has changed thedesignation of the facility from a pre-release center to aminimum-security prison, which reflects the diminished services andlimited programming flexibility.
As a result of these changes,according to an April 2008 advisory board report, only 57 of 107 Chaneyinmates were on full-time work release.
Making the Effort?
GaryDavis was the first superintendent of the Chaney Center and now serveson the community advisory board. He said that “there’s no magic wand”that will connect inmates to jobs, but the DOC and Chaney staff shouldat least demonstrate that efforts are being made to do so.
“Ifit’s impossible to [secure employment for inmates] because of theeconomic times we’re in right now, then the facility should be able todemonstrate at least its efforts in putting as many people insituations where they get interviewed and be considered for any and allemployment, from the most menial labor to the jobs that would beconsidered more substantial,” Davis said. “You need to start developingthose types of employment histories or community service experiences.”
JohnDipko, spokesman for the DOC, said that appropriate work-supportservices are in place, even if jobs aren’t readily available. “Wehave increased the hours of community service performed by the Chaneyinmates,” Dipko said.
As we went to press, the DOC and the executivecommittee of the Felmers O. Chaney Correctional Center CommunityAdvisory Board were planning to meet in Madison. After negotiating overthe agenda for the meeting, the DOC agreed toa more detailed agenda put forward by the advisory board, whichincluded the mission of a pre-release center vs. a minimum-securityprison; which inmates are eligible to stay at Chaney; publictransportation for inmates; and inmate length of stay at Chaney.
Communityadvisory board chair R.L. McNeely said on Tuesday that he hoped the DOCwould recognize “the collaborative spirit of the board” at the meetingand begin rebuilding a productive dialogue. “The board is taking our responsibility very seriously,” McNeely said.
Promises to the Community
Theboard’s criticism of the Chaney facility is especially stinging,because the board’s existence was essential to generating communitysupport for the center. Named for former Urban League and local NAACPPresident Felmers O. Chaney, the facility was established as astate-of-the-art, forward-thinking pre-release facility that would helpnonviolent offenders make a successful transition to independence uponrelease. It was the product of the merger of the Abode and St. John’sCorrectional Center, and most inmates are from Milwaukee. To ensure thesafety of the community, the inmates are carefully screened andassessed; no sexual offenders would be allowed to stay at the facility.
The DOC needed the community’s support to build the facility,so it promised nearby civic and neighborhood groups that a strongcommunity advisory board would be involved in oversight of thefacility.
Davis said that when the Chaney Center first opened,it engaged inmates in the community by allowing them to go on jobinterviews and to work sites, meet with relatives, go to a house ofworship, get their hair cut, recover their driver’s licenses and otherdocuments, take educational courses and exams, and provide communityservices. “We provided a constructive re-entry strategy,” Davis said. “We were putting people to work with less-than-stellar records.”
Butthat has changed, board members argue. The April 2008 memo stated that“almost all of the re-integration mechanisms […] have been eliminated,or sharply constrained, since 2002/03, thereby adversely affectingChaney’s ability to accomplish its expressly stated mission while alsoamounting to a reneging on the promises DOC made both to communitygroups and to individuals in order to enlist community support forbuilding the prison.”
McNeely said the result has beendetrimental to the inmates and the wider community. He is concernedthat sexual offenders are now being allowed to stay at the ChaneyCenter, although sexual predators are still banned. He argued thatinmates aren’t staying at Chaney long enough to absorb the programmingthat is offered to them. And he says DOC staff in Madison isn’tresponsive to the board’s concerns and suggestions.
“A lot ofthings are happening there to frustrate the mission the DOC agreed toin order to get community support to build the prison,” McNeely said.
Davis said the DOC has “retrenched a bit” in allowing inmates to becomepart of the community. Inmates oftentimes must wear prison garb when inpublic, instead of civilian clothing, and they are transported in vansinstead of taking the bus, which limits the number of inmates who areallowed to travel in the city.
The DOC’s Dipko said there is still a“strong work-release component” at Chaney, but that DOC Secretary Rick Raemisch understood the concerns of the board. “He values the advisory role that the board has and he’s looking forward to meeting with them this week,” Dipko said.
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