A new report has found that of the roughly 8,000 people behind bars who have served their time and are released to the District each year, half of them will be locked up again within three years.
The report, released Thursday by the Council for Court Excellence — an ex-convict advocacy group — said a big factor in ex-cons’ inability to transition to a new life is because they can’t get a job that pays the bills.
Nearly half of the city’s 60,000 ex-cons are unemployed and “joblessness among the previously incarcerated is exacerbating overall employment problems and threatening the long-term economic health and security of our neighborhoods,” the report said.
Source: Council for Court Excellence
| By the numbers |
| 60,000 — number of ex-cons in D.C. |
| 8,000 — number of people released from jail to the District annually. |
| 4,000 — number who return to jail within three years. |
| 46 percent — portion of ex-convicts in D.C. without a job. |
The report also found that half of those who received education and training while incarcerated said those benefits helped them find a job after being released. But the group’s survey of 550 ex-convicts revealed no difference in the employment rate of those who received an educational certificate and those who didn’t.
Employers also see impediments to hiring people with criminal records. Although one-third of employers said they had hired an ex-con in the past or would do so if the opportunity arose, more than half said factors such as legal liability protection and industry-specific skill training would “significantly increase or influence hiring,” the report said.
Those who fight for the rights of crime victims agree with the report’s findings.
“When you can’t find a job you go back to a life of crime,” said Gregory Wims, president of the Victims Rights Foundation in Montgomery County. “It’s just one big cycle.”
Wims said that although his group advocates for victims it supports “anything to keep the crime from happening.” He said making sure at-risk youths finish high school and that after-school groups like Boys and Girls clubs are funded can go a long way.
“Thirty-five percent of those incarcerated probably wouldn’t be if they had a solid education,” he said.
The report comes one day before a D.C. Council committee is scheduled to hear testimony on the District’s re-entry programs for ex-offenders. The report has several recommendations, including establishing liability protection for businesses who hire ex-convicts and keeping job training in prisons in line with skills in demand in the job market.
