September 15, 1971

Offender Rehabilitation Programs

The Federally sponsored offender rehabilitation programs within the

primary responsibility of the Department of Labor were initiated in June of 1967 with authority for two years under Section 251 of the Manpower Development and Training Act as amended in 1966. This authority was extended for one year with the 1968 amendments to the MDTA giving the program an expiration date of June 30, 1970. Since June of 1970, the program has been continued under Section 202 of the MDTA.

Seven years of experimental, demonstration, research and evaluation effort has provided strong evidence of the value of a comprehensive approach to employment and training problems of offenders. A balanced program of manpower services at each stage of the criminal justice system-after arrest, during probation and parole, and to ex-offenders--should be stressed rather than sole concentration on inmate training.

It is important to remember that only a very small portion of offenders are incarcerated--even for the most serious offenses. Most offenders are already in society, whether on bail, on probation, on parole, in community based corrections. Since offenders may remain at one stage of the criminal Justice system for long periods of time and may exit from the system at a number of points, it is vital that any system of effective offender rehabilitation provide program options at each stage of the criminal Justice and corrections system and offer a continuous sequence of services keyed to the flow of the offender through these systems.

Enclosure No. 6

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Eecause of the pilot nature of this undertaking, we have not yet implemented a comprehensive manpower program for the offender population. Although we are moving towards this, we still are not ready to commit ourselves to one comprehensive program until we can gain more experience from projects presently underway. The following is a description of the programs which have been operational (some for several years and some for only a matter of months), since we entered the correctional manpower

field, These programs are: the Prison Inmate Training Program, the Pre-Trial Intervention Program, the Bonding Program, the Employment Service Model Program, and finally a description of the State Comprehensive Correctional Manpower Model our first attempt to bring together not only Department of Labor programs, but also to tie in the services available through other public agencies and the private sector. A discussion of evaluation studies, recommendations and the actions we have taken as a result follows this last program description. Attachment A is a list of research projects presently underway or being considered for funding.

Attachment B shows

the positions and funding levels for the program since 1968. Attachment C is a summary of FY 1971 obligations and Attachment D is the runding plan for FY 1972.

Prison Inmate Training Program

The immate training program has introduced into prisons the idea of employment oriented training and manpower services as part of prison rehabilitation. Inmates are provided with job training, remedial and basic education, vocational and personal-social counseling services, job development and

3.

placement services, and follow-up services.

(Experience and the results

of the Pownall study (Employment Problems of Released Prisoners, (1965)

funded by the Manpower administration) indicate that training for prisoners has a very limited effect when it is offered without other supportive services).

The program has been administered jointly by the Manpower Administration and the Office of Education, HIW. Projects are developed at the local level by the Employment Service and the Vocational Education agency. Development includes consultation with State Law Enforcement assistance Administration and corrections officials. In the fall of FY 1972 approval and funding authority (which has been with an interagency committee at the national level) will be transferred to the regions.

During FY 1971, the prison inmate program provided vocational training to over 4,500 immates in 48 projects in such skills as welding, auto body repair, auto mechanics, electronics, office machine repair, drafting and upholstering.

The program has attempted to transform the attitudes of line staff security personnel by involving prison staff in the planning and operation of the training program, thus opening up new and effective lines of

communication and understanding.

Another unique feature of this program

has been the use of more substantial "gate money" to meet problems during the period of readjustment after release. The average cost of $1,600 per enrolled includes a small stipend, -- most of which is held back to be used for gate money.

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Tre-Trial Intervention

Pre-Trial Intervention projects are directed toward those people (ages 17-45) who have been arrested for specificd economically-motivated crimes, but who have not yet been tried. The program provides the court with an alternative other than discharge without assistance, probation or incarceration. Under project design accused offenders are removed from the criminal justice process for specified time periods (90-180 days) and intensive counseling (frequently by para-professional ex-offenders), education, job development, and additional supportive services are offered to them. If the accused offender responds in a positive way to these services, a recommendation is made to the court for disposition of the case. If the court accepts the recommendation, the charges against him are dropped. The accused offender therefore works toward two goals: (a) improving his employability, and (b) avoiding a criminal record, with the hope ultimately of avoiding subsequent commission of crime.

Most of the funding is for professional and para-professional staff who conduct intensive counseling, develop jobs with private employers, and move participants into already existing manpower programs and supportive services. A major significance of this program design is to utilize staff with backgrounds similar to those of the accused offender participants. This makes it possible to bridge communication and cultural barriers and permit existing manpower program models and techniques to reach a large and critically important segment of the population before institutionalization further complicates future rehabilitation.

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By intervening in the criminal justice process at this early stage,

we intend to determine whether intensive counseling and manpower services (extended to selective categories of youthful and adult offenders will improve their employment opportunities and reduce their rates of recidivism, thus providing an alternative to the usual cycle of arraignment, trial, sentencing, release and return.

Two experimental and demonstration pretrial diversion projects were funded as early as 1967 and 1968--The Manhattan Court Employment Project and Project Crossroads.

These projects serve those accused offenders who

are not exposed to the regular inmate training and the ex-offender programs. One measure of the success of these two pilot efforts is that they now received local funding at expanded capacities. In the Washington, D. C. effort, Project Crossroads, favorably terminated participants committed further criminal acts at a rate of less than one half that of a control group which did not receive project services.

Because this approach shows so much promise, we will have funded projects in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Newark and San Antonio. It is too early to determine what the results of these projects will be as most were funded in the second half of FY 1971. However, in the two earliest projects Cleveland and linneapolis

the judges and prosecution from the court systems have demonstrated their positive feelings by referring accused offenders in excess of the anticipated

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