Ex-convicts struggling to find jobs

You can earn your G.E.D. and even a Ph.D., but if you’ve been in the D.O.C., you’re going to have a hard time finding a J-O-B, says Pastor Stanley “Curly” Thompson.

Thompson, known by many as the “Mayor of Downtown” is a 15-year volunteer of the Rockford Reachout Jail Ministry. In response to an Aug. 25 story that highlighted alternative programs offered to help rehabilitate Winnebago County Jail inmates, Thompson heaped praise on the court system and county officials for using money generated from the 1-cent public safety tax to fund the programs.

But he said, “That’s not enough. There’s a component still missing. Employers have to hire them.”

If not, he said, ex-convicts are likely to fall back into their ways that got them incarcerated in the first place.

For several years, Rockford has had the distinction of having one of the highest crime rates in the state. Thompson believes employing rehabilitated inmates will make them less likely to become repeat offenders and will go a long way toward lowering the city’s crime rate.

“Reducing recidivism takes a partnership between people willing to work hard and employers willing to hire them,” he said.

Andrea Werle, 34, of Loves Park served seven months in the Winnebago County Jail followed by five months in prison for abusing drugs. She’s been drug free for eight months and job hunting for the past six.

“My criminal background hinders me,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”

Careers etc. is offering a lifeline to Werle and hundreds of others like her in the county.

The East State Street agency provides transitional employment to men and women leaving the correctional system and re-entering the work force.

Repeatedly stoned
Werle, who is trying to raise a 14-year-old daughter, has lost track of how many job applications she has filled out.

The section on the application where it asks have you ever been arrested, Werle doesn’t lie. She checks yes.

“I wouldn’t want to work two or three months at a job, and then have them find out I’ve been arrested and get fired,” she said.

Her honesty has yet to pay off.

“When a person is trying to do the right thing, they shouldn’t be repeatedly stoned,” she said. “I have to make it, too. I have mouths to feed. Just because I’m a convict, my life doesn’t stop.”

Werle said on more than one occasion an interview has come to an abrupt halt when an employer learns she has served time.

“When I hear, ‘We’ll call you back,’ that’s real discouraging for me because I know I’ll never get a call back,” she said.

Werle was released from the Lincoln Correctional Center in November. Her one year of parole will end this November. Yet she wonders how long she and other ex-convicts unable to find a job will have to keep serving a sentence placed on them by society unwilling to give them a second chance.

“We’ve served our time,” she said. “We gave back to the community, and we’re hard workers. If we go into the penitentiary and can work for $14.25 per month, why can’t we come out and at least earn minimum wage?”

Job hunting is lonely
Careers etc. has been empowering people to work for the past 15 years, but only in the last two has it become one of just seven agencies in the state to contract with the Illinois Department of Corrections to provide transitional employment over the next 12 months to 75 people leaving the D.O.C. and re-entering the work force.

Stephen Haight, president and CEO of Career’s etc., said a new parolee will go through three weeks of “job readiness training.”

“We teach them about work ethics, how to keep a job and how to talk frankly and honestly about their convictions and the skills that they do have,” he said.

Upon completion, the applicant is then placed in a white or blue collar job — such as an office setting, janitorial and food services or manufacturing — depending on their skill sets.

“We’ll subsidize their wages for the first 60 days at a maximum of 30 hours per week,” Haight said.

In addition, Haight said Career etc. also provides case management to the employee during the 60 days.

“The hope is, if they do a good job, at the end of 60 days the employer will take them on and hire them permanently,” he said.

While the program is a new concept nationwide, Haight said, “It’s been proven over and over again one of the primary factors in preventing recidivism is employment.”

Haight also said it’s critical for ex-offenders to find employment within 90 days of their release from prison.

Chris Green can be reached at (815) 987-1241 or cgreen@rrstar.com.