NCJ Number
127274
Journal
Corrections Compendium Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Dated: (August 1986) Pages: 8-11,14
Date Published
1986
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Ex-offender job placement agencies funded only by government contract typically go out of business when that funding ends.
Abstract
Such was the case with Employ-Ex in Denver, which closed in 1985 after 13 years of serving ex-offenders. Although it found jobs for 70 percent of the 12,000 offenders it processed and, by conservative estimates, produced a threefold return on each tax dollar, the State and its taxpayers considered it a waste of money. Safer, a Chicago agency named after the concept of safer streets, has grown in spite of contemporary sentiments away from treatment and toward building more prisons. Each year, the non-profit organization helps 6,000 offenders and secures more than 2,500 jobs. It has 23 different sources for funding, with the idea that if it loses one, it can still survive. A 1976 study estimated that there were more than 250 ex-offender projects in the United States. Many, such as Project Jove in California, have since gone out of business, while the Comprehensive Offender Employment Resource System (COERS) in Massachusetts and the Alston Wilkes Society of Columbia, S.C. have thrived by drawing upon diverse resources.