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LUCKY SEVERSON, guest anchor: For a lot of people, finding work these days is tough enough. It's even harder for people getting out of prison, as a record number of Americans are this year.
Some cannot qualify for driver's licenses, student loans, or public housing. Some can never vote again. Punishment that extends far beyond prison.
CHESTER HART (South East Ministry, Washington, DC): Hell no, I am going to put a pit bull outside. I don't want to see you every day.
LUCKY SEVERSON: No sweet talk here. No tender ears. No delicate egos. The instructor of this "How to Get a Job" class has only been out of prison three years. After a career of bank robbery, bad checks, and credit card fraud, Chester Hart seems to have found a home and a cause with Washington, DC's South East Ministry. All of his students have been in prison; some are still in a halfway house.
(to Mr. Hart): When you get out of prison and you are looking for a job, when you are looking for any help you can get, you probably feel as low as you can go?
Mr. HART: Oh, it's no question. It robs you of your esteem because it is almost like you have acquired a giant plague. Nobody wants to touch.
SEVERSON: "Giant plague" seems to be an appropriate description. More Americans than ever before -- more than 625,000 -- are completing their sentences and coming home from prison this year. So many, the authorities are asking neighborhood churches to help ease the burden. Consider Chester Hart's neighborhood. Over 73 percent of African-American men in Ward 8 have been in prison at least once, most for dealing drugs.
Mr. HART: One thing I have learned: the majority of guys who leave the institution really want to do good. We get discouraged. So what happens is there is always a guy on the corner or in the neighborhood that is willing to offer you on-job training with no experience necessary. Then it's back to a life of crime. It's so easy to do so.
SEVERSON: Each ex-offender who graduates is considered a huge victory, even though they are entering the worst job market in years, and with a huge stain on their resume.
Unidentified FORMER INMATE: I'm not saying I am not ready to go out there. But I could learn more, a whole lot more.
SHANNON RANDALL (Former Inmate): Jail doesn't do anything but make you more slicker, more hipper to what not to do. What, how not to get caught.
SEVERSON: Shannon Randall is typical of the ex-offenders who are coming home. After her mom died while she was a teenager, she grew up fast and hard on drugs and, like an increasing number of drug abusers, ended up incarcerated.
Ms. RANDALL: How am I supposed to get a job if I am not given a chance to get a job?
SEVERSON: What Shannon didn't know when she was sentenced as a drug offender was that her sentence extended far beyond prison.
MARC MAUER (Co-Author, INVISIBLE PUNISHMENT): We find that these invisible punishments carry on with you long after you leave prison -- in some cases, for the rest of your life.
SEVERSON: Marc Mauer is with the nonprofit Sentencing Project and has co-authored a book called INVISIBLE PUNISHMENT. Many are targeted at drug offenders.
Mr. MAUER: You may be barred from receiving welfare benefits for life. You may be prohibited from living in public housing. If you want to go to college, you'd be prohibited from getting student loans, financial aid. You may lose your right to vote for life.
SEVERSON: Florida Congressman Tom Feeney believes many ex-felons ought to lose their right to vote. If anything, he thinks the laws are not prosecuted forcefully enough. And he defends "invisible punishments."
Congressman TOM FEENEY (R-FL): We have the right to fashion policies that protect society, citizens, from people who may be likely to re-offend.
SEVERSON: For the inmates coming home, some federal and state laws don't make much sense.
Mr. MAUER: Many states prohibit former felons from becoming barbers. Now, why would somebody convicted of tax fraud or stealing a car or anything else, why shouldn't that person be allowed to be a barber?
SEVERSON: And, in some states convicted murderers qualify for benefits, where first-time drug offenders can't. Shannon, for instance, who is now studying for her high school diploma, cannot receive food stamps, a provision of the law that has been particularly hard on women coming from behind bars.
Ms. RANDALL: They will give you cash benefits, but they won't give you any food stamps. Which I think is really dumb because if a person is going to use, they have the money to use, you know.
Some cannot qualify for driver's licenses, student loans, or public housing. Some can never vote again. Punishment that extends far beyond prison.
CHESTER HART (South East Ministry, Washington, DC): Hell no, I am going to put a pit bull outside. I don't want to see you every day.
LUCKY SEVERSON: No sweet talk here. No tender ears. No delicate egos. The instructor of this "How to Get a Job" class has only been out of prison three years. After a career of bank robbery, bad checks, and credit card fraud, Chester Hart seems to have found a home and a cause with Washington, DC's South East Ministry. All of his students have been in prison; some are still in a halfway house.
(to Mr. Hart): When you get out of prison and you are looking for a job, when you are looking for any help you can get, you probably feel as low as you can go?
Mr. HART: Oh, it's no question. It robs you of your esteem because it is almost like you have acquired a giant plague. Nobody wants to touch.SEVERSON: "Giant plague" seems to be an appropriate description. More Americans than ever before -- more than 625,000 -- are completing their sentences and coming home from prison this year. So many, the authorities are asking neighborhood churches to help ease the burden. Consider Chester Hart's neighborhood. Over 73 percent of African-American men in Ward 8 have been in prison at least once, most for dealing drugs.
Mr. HART: One thing I have learned: the majority of guys who leave the institution really want to do good. We get discouraged. So what happens is there is always a guy on the corner or in the neighborhood that is willing to offer you on-job training with no experience necessary. Then it's back to a life of crime. It's so easy to do so.
SEVERSON: Each ex-offender who graduates is considered a huge victory, even though they are entering the worst job market in years, and with a huge stain on their resume.
Unidentified FORMER INMATE: I'm not saying I am not ready to go out there. But I could learn more, a whole lot more.
SHANNON RANDALL (Former Inmate): Jail doesn't do anything but make you more slicker, more hipper to what not to do. What, how not to get caught.SEVERSON: Shannon Randall is typical of the ex-offenders who are coming home. After her mom died while she was a teenager, she grew up fast and hard on drugs and, like an increasing number of drug abusers, ended up incarcerated.
Ms. RANDALL: How am I supposed to get a job if I am not given a chance to get a job?
SEVERSON: What Shannon didn't know when she was sentenced as a drug offender was that her sentence extended far beyond prison.
MARC MAUER (Co-Author, INVISIBLE PUNISHMENT): We find that these invisible punishments carry on with you long after you leave prison -- in some cases, for the rest of your life.
SEVERSON: Marc Mauer is with the nonprofit Sentencing Project and has co-authored a book called INVISIBLE PUNISHMENT. Many are targeted at drug offenders.
Mr. MAUER: You may be barred from receiving welfare benefits for life. You may be prohibited from living in public housing. If you want to go to college, you'd be prohibited from getting student loans, financial aid. You may lose your right to vote for life. SEVERSON: Florida Congressman Tom Feeney believes many ex-felons ought to lose their right to vote. If anything, he thinks the laws are not prosecuted forcefully enough. And he defends "invisible punishments."
Congressman TOM FEENEY (R-FL): We have the right to fashion policies that protect society, citizens, from people who may be likely to re-offend.
SEVERSON: For the inmates coming home, some federal and state laws don't make much sense.
Mr. MAUER: Many states prohibit former felons from becoming barbers. Now, why would somebody convicted of tax fraud or stealing a car or anything else, why shouldn't that person be allowed to be a barber?
SEVERSON: And, in some states convicted murderers qualify for benefits, where first-time drug offenders can't. Shannon, for instance, who is now studying for her high school diploma, cannot receive food stamps, a provision of the law that has been particularly hard on women coming from behind bars.
Ms. RANDALL: They will give you cash benefits, but they won't give you any food stamps. Which I think is really dumb because if a person is going to use, they have the money to use, you know.
other able-bodied people, regardless of whether they came out of prison or not. I would tell you rather than providing welfare, on the whole, I would rather provide education and vocational education and opportunities.
Pastor GARLAND SCOTT: We give them Jesus, but we can't give them a job. We give them Jesus, but we can't give them an education. Jesus saves, but education keeps.
Mr. DORN: This program has given me a sense of hope, really, because when you are out and you try not to go back to the same thing, you tend to get frustrated because money is not flowing as fast at all really. So it has given me a place where I can come and they not considering my background, for me to get employment.
SEVERSON: Both sides of the debate agree that job programs like the one in Jacksonville are what's needed in cities throughout the U.S., and that is why the Bush administration has selected it as a pilot program for the rest of the country.
