Outside Looking In

For ex-prisoners, state and federal funding for reentry programs doesn't always translate to-real-world help

By: Katie Sobko
and Michael Karas
Trenton Bureau
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... When Sam Quiles was first incarcerated, he was 16 years old. It was the early 1990s. before Apple, amazon and Google became household names. He didn't have a drive's license. he couldn't vote or buy alcohol.
..... Fast-forward 30 years, In February 2023, Quiles was released from the New Jersey prison system. He;s been attending college and working toward a degree in criminal justice from Rutgers University.
..... Quiles describes himself as a learner. When he got out, he said, he wanted to put his best foot forward. he said eh and many others like him - who were given decades-long sentences while only in their teens - are returning to lives in New Jersey without practical experience to navigate a complex new world. That real-world information - how to purchase fare public transportation or use a smartphone - is not included in programs the New Jersey prison system uses to prepare inmates for release.
..... "A lot of us, especially those who were young juveniles when we were sentenced to three decades in prison, they're not going to teach you how to use a phone," Quiles said. "I never used a bus ... I don't know how to enter a lease or legal contract like that. It's not taught in those programs on the inside."
..... Quiles, who now lives in Newark, [NJ] went on to explain that the program offered by the state, and organizations affiliated with a funded by New Jersey state government, then to focus on things like addiction and aggressive behavior, even though he said many high-level offenders "purged those behaviors long ago in our incarceration."
..... And taxpayer money funds many of the programs offered or endorsed by the state. The specifies may change from year to year, but the fiscal year 2024 budget signed y Governor Phil Murphy includes:
* 263,000 for Transition Professionals Reentry Services.
* $1 million for Reentry coalition of New Jersey.
* $10.4 million for New Jersey Reentry Corporation - OneStop Offender Reentry Services
* $7.4 million for Volunteers of American - Reentry Services.
..... According to information provided to the legislature as lawmakers worked to craft a spending plan for New Jersey's 2024 fiscal year, these groups have served 4,537 people in the last 12 months and have all received budgetary funding in years past.
..... The groups offer varying degrees of assistance for people leaving the prison system, though all are focused on working to reduce recidivism rates. Transition Professionals, based in North Jersey works with Bergen County and the Bergen County Jail. In addition to state and local funding, it receives community donations.
..... Meanwhile, the Reentry Coalition of New Jersey is a group of agencies throughout the state. The member groups have residential facilities focused on substance abuse and parole programs.

Reentry programs 'not geared toward long-term offenders'

..... Quiles said that what he really needed when he was first released - and now as he continues to reintegrate - is somebody to explain day-to-day situations that most people take for granted like accessing a bus schedule.
..... But Quiles isn't the on one to struggle to adjust to life after prison. He also not alone in having trouble finding resources that are supposed to help him do just that.
..... Quiles said that when he participated in the "Successful Transition and Reentry Series" - or STARS - program offered by the Department of Corrections, it assisted him by running a credit check, despite the fact that he had been incarcerated since he was a teen and had no way to build credit. The program also had trouble securing his birth certificate, because he was born in Puerto Rico.
..... "It's not geared toward long-term offenders, people who have served decades in prison, people who have never been in front of a computer," he said. "You might have those that kind of excuse the program or the institution and say how they're not equipped to handle it. Well, why not? they're equipped to sentence you to 30 years, so how does that make sense?"
..... Those programs may help some people readjust, but Quiles and dozens of other men and women NorthJersey.com interviewed over the course of six months said they needed additional support in navigating a world much different from the one they know before their time on the inside.

Adjusting to 'a whole different reality'

..... Six years ago, when Edwin "Chino" Ortiz was released after nearly 30 years in the New Jersey prison system, he was motivated to become a productive member of society. He was proactive, and reached out to agencies and organizations geared toward helping with reentry. He also said he was lucky to have a strong support system in his family.
..... But it wasn't enough.
..... "I didn't really have a concept of what reentry should look like, he said. "I'm thinking, 'OK, once I get a job, everything else is cake,' I mean, I'd be able to get an apartment, I'd be able to get a car and all these different things. When I came home, it was a whole different reality."
..... Ortiz said he didn't know ahead of time what real issues he would face. He had trouble finding housing, getting his Social Security card and getting access to other resources. He also had issues relating to people who hadn't experienced what he had.
..... He took matters into his own hands and founded the Returning Citizens Support Group. Originally just a handful of men meeting in a church basement in Newark [NJ] to talk about the traumas they had experienced, the group is now hundreds of members strong and is open not just to formerly incarcerated people but also to their families and friends and the community at large.
..... "It's powerful. People don't want to leave and sometimes we have to kick them out, just because of the camaraderie and the environment of support and love," Ortiz said. "It's a space where people can heal from trauma that they endured in prison, and a lot even before prison."
..... Ortiz said the group has grown :beyond just a support group" to something more, where those in attendance work to get rid of the stigma associated with being formerly incarcerated.
..... And members literally support each other, whether it's leads for a job or an apartment, help moving or lending a few dollars to help buy essentials.
..... Ortiz helped Laura Tista, who spent about a year at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, track down her birth certificate and other vital paperwork for her children.
.... "The halfway house was supposed to help me get it. they said they had parts of my stuff. They never actually did," Tista said. "I was supposed to have my birth certificate; didn't have that at all, My Social Security card. Luckily, I had a spare one put away. but if it wasn't for that, the halfway house would have never gave me anything. I would have come out with nothing."
..... Tista said she applied for a paperwork and followed up while at the halfway house but never heard back.
..... Now, a year after her release, Tista and her three kids continue to crash with a friend, but the group is helping her tack down housing options. They're also helped her with clothing for the kids and provided bus passes when she was first released to help her commute to work and school. She's studying obtain a degree in social work.
..... It bothers her that she had been assured by the state that she would be able to get her affairs in order at the halfway house.
..... "I was told they were going to help us with housing and job placement and helping us get all the stuff that we need when we came home, like insurance, food stamps ... and honestly, when I came home, no help at all," she said. "It wasn't until really when i started going through the courses [at school] and came to the group that I saw how badly the system failed us."
..... Ortiz said the efforts of the Returning Citizen Support Group and other groups like it are about more than just getting someone a job or paperwork or even short-term counseling, which the officials agencies provide.
..... "You go there [to state-funded programs0, and they say, 'Hey, we're going to send yo to a job,' but it's more than that," he said. "People are dealing with trauma."
..... That personal touch has helped Yuro Takuma tremendously. Takuma served nearly 40 years and was released in late February. [2023] He went inside at 16 and is now 55 and is living with family.
..... Takuma had heard about the Returning Citizens Support Group through word of mouth form other inmates and his attorney while he was still on the inside. He reached out and has been in touch with Ortiz ever since.
..... "If I was feeling some type of way right now, they have a setup, a web of people in the group that you can pull to the side to talk to you, no matter if it's two o'clock in the morning," Takuma said. "I call [Ortiz] all the time and say, 'It's kind of tough for me right now. I need someone to talk to,' and he says, 'Wat do you want to talk about?' So there's more of a personal connection in a group like that."
..... After four decades on the inside, Takuma has had some trouble adjusting, but the group has helped him "precess and communicate."
..... He said groups like this have "more dedicated, committed people," while others "work on the surface."

High need for groups that help prisoners after release

..... Ortiz isn't the only one doing what he can to help and, as he puts it, change the narrative. The Trans formative Justice Initiative, based in Camden, [NJ] has also been doing what it can to help individuals affected by the justice system reintegrate.
..... Tait group was founded in 2019 and strives to help take the guesswork out of the re-acclimation process by helping with everything form getting ID, clothes and bus passes to obtaining resources from mental health services.
..... Rashawn Lane, released earlier this year [2023] from Northern State Prison in Newark [NJ] after 28 years, is making plans to do what he can to pay it forward.
..... Lane is working with his sister to start a nonprofit to help individuals who were sentenced to mandatory minimums, the same type of sentence he received.
..... His plan is to start with something simple, like a bag of essentials including cloths, bus passes and information on employment resources.
..... "A lot of these organizations, they send us to welfare. It's easier to start selling drugs than it is to get a welfare card," he said. "Chino is doing he part, but there's more needed. There's way more needed."
..... Lane noted that he also wants to take steps to teach recently released individuals how to sue technology that has advanced during the decades they've been behind bars, as well as with career placement and the endless paperwork needed in daily life.
..... He's staying with family in Linden [NJ] and has struggled to get his Family First card, an electronic card sued to obtain benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and health insurance. He was sent to offices in Linden, Elizabeth and Newark [NJ] but hasn't gotten all that he needs yet.
..... "We're trying to change the culture, where people have an opportunity to do positive things. But why do we got to go through, jump through, all these hoops to just get a job or even just get some assistance from the government?" he said. "Nobody wants to sit on welfare. We want to work, but we're just trying to get established."
..... Lane also noted that inmates fill out paperwork for services like welfare before their release, but "when we get out, they act like you never did," and the paperwork is nowhere to be found. Lane said information about essential services should be "easy to obtain."
..... He went on to say state-funded agencies are "getting this money and not doing nothing with it," so the "only programs out here are the ones we establish ourselves."

Finances a 'big contributor to individual recidivism'

..... Although there significant state and federal dollars fund reentry programs in New Jersey, those investments do not translate to money for the people leaving incarceration. In fact, the struggle to get paperwork and inconsistencies in resources can have a negative impact on securing gainful employment.
..... Damon Sharuka Venable was arrested at 16 and served 35 years. He's been out for about two years and how has a steady job in the legal industry, but trouble with his paperwork hindered that progress.
..... "I was just struggling to get some documents. The thing about that is it really stops you from being able to work, because the moment you hit the ground from prison, you have financial issues,"he said.
..... "That, for me, is a real big contributor to individual recidivism, because the clock was ticking, financially, once you get out and you don't have the requite paperwork to participate in the workforce, to earn a living. And that crates stresses and pressures, and relapse happen."
..... Venable called a state-issued ID from the Motor Vehicle Commission "one of the most important things th have: and said it's something that reentry-focused agencies get funding to help with.
..... He went on to say that's where the expertise of Returning Citizens comes into play. The members know how to go through the process because they've done it themselves.
..... "They will take you to track down paperwork that Social Security and other agencies ming want, whereas the other groups and reentry corporations and agencies and companies, they just refer you somewhere," he said.
..... "It's all a scam. It embodies putting profit over people."

..... Katie Sobko cover the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersy.com.
..... Michael Karas is a visual journalist. Email: karasm@northjersey.com.

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