An ounce of prevention, the saying goes, is worth a pound of cure.
It is an oft-quoted principle that Alternative Directions ? an offender and ex-offender outreach group ? gives more than lip service to, leveraging its logic into practical prison and post-release programs that reclaim people, cut recidivism rates and save Marylanders crime-relatedcosts and millions in tax dollars.
“They?re like a second family to me,” said Stacy Miller, a Baltimore ex-offender and graduate of the group?s parole-connected Turnaround Program. “They helped me with a list of things.”
Functionally divided into release-preparation workshop coordination, in-prison civil/legal assistance ? which addresses child support modification, divorce, and custody matters ? and post-release drug rehabilitation and mainstreaming, Alternative Directions was founded by Mary Joel Davis in 1982 to ease the confinement-release transition for those who have paid their debt to society.
“Alternative Directions works with those in prison [as paralegal advisors],” Davis said of one program designed to keep families intact, “helping them, for example, with child support modification [so as to avoid] coming out with bills like $35,000 and not being able to pay them.
“Our agency is the one that [won a legal decision] that men and women in prison would be able to stop their child support while they were incarcerated,” Davis added, making the connection between crushing post-release debt and family abandonment or repeat offenses. In 2006 alone, Davis said, 8,000 inmates utilized this service, and 900 had their child support obligations adjusted.
The organization leverages relationships with 60 other Maryland social service groups ? as well as parole and corrections department authorities ? to conduct its pre-release seminars and help 40 ex-offender women per year kick drug habits and cope with their new circumstances under its year-long “sobriety-and-stability-first” TAP.
A smaller-scope counterpart program, called Positive Directions, accommodates male and female ex-offenders.
With a staff of eight and an annual budget of $300,00, funded mostly through Maryland Legal Services Corp., a terminating city stipend, and private and foundation money, the nonprofit boastsa 25 percent recidivism rate for their charges, compared with a 67 percent national average.
“We don?t have too much money,” Davis said, “even though we?re saving the state money and saving taxpayers from being robbed again.”
