Substance abuse and employment barriers for paroled prisoners

¶ … Parolees Face Upon Release

When a prisoner is paroled from prison and attempts to reintegrate himself into society he can face many different obstacles that keep him from successfully resuming a life outside prison. These problems can range from internal problems the parolees have to deal with in their own lives, like drug addiction, to problems that society inflicts upon them, like the inability to find employment. Even without those difficulties though, many prisoners find the adjustment from a life in confinement to one of freedom to be impossible to navigate. Many of these parolees end up violating their parole and returning to prison, a full two-thirds return to prison within two years. Even if a parolee is successful in staying out of prison, just finding affordable housing can be a serious challenge. All of these problems must be overcome if a former prisoner is going to re-enter society and live as a functional member of society.

Substance Abuse

Probably the most serious problem facing most parolees is that of substance abuse. This is the problem that plagues Richard in the film From Prison to Home and the problem that landed Calvin in jail in the same film. For Richard, like many other parolees, substance abuse is an ongoing problem and he has spent about twelve years moving in and out of the penal system. This is not unusual since roughly eighty percent of the prison population reports a history of drug and alcohol use, with about fifty percent saying they were using at the time of their incarceration. For these parolees the rate of relapse in an unstructured environment on the outside is much higher than it might be behind bars. Since even using or purchasing illicit drugs is itself a crime, these parolees are very likely to be repeat offenders. When you add that they might commit other crimes while under the influence of such substances or in order to be able to get drugs or alcohol, the recidivism rate is bound to be quite high.

One way to battle this is to offer in-prison drug treatment that has shown great promise not only in reducing addiction while in prison, but in preventing long-term relapse upon release. Prisoners who received longer terms of treatment intervention were more likely to avoid relapse in the future. This treatment, along with strong criminal justice supervision after release and community-based aftercare, can be very effective in reducing the potential problems of substance abuse for parolees.

Housing and Reintegration

Housing is a particular problem for many parolees due to the fact that, like employment, they are limited in where they can seek housing. Parolees usually do not have the money for a down payment and security deposit while many public housing authorities do not allow former convicts to live in their housing projects. To combat this problem, many parolees end up moving in with relatives. Richard, the crack addict, lives with his parents and 49-year-old Calvin lives with his sister. But this presents them with a new problem. Many parolees have indicated that it is difficult to be around people they knew from before their incarceration. Robert Grooms told about not having anything in common with is old friends and how he wanted to have everything that those around him had accumulated during the time he was away. This led him to seek out people like himself who had been in prison and they began to discuss the things they had in common.

For parolees, living arrangements also seem to be the leading cause of parolees absconding. 29% of them indicated that it was the main reason they had absconded with unstable employment close behind. Many of these parolees can wind up living on the streets when there are no other options available to them and their chances of recidivism grow much higher at that point. Affordable and stable housing options are necessary to assist parolees in reintegrating into normal society.