Thursday, August 28, 1997
Inmates Encouraged to Learn Employability Skills
By BETH HALLMARK / Abilene Reporter-News
You ain't gonna get no job talkin' like this.
Proper English is just one of the things you need to learn
if you are an inmate preparing for employment in the free world,
said speakers at the Middleton Unit's Project RIO Career Resource
Day on Wednesday.
About 130 Middleton inmates participating in Project RIO attended
the event, designed to give them information on the types of career
resources available for parolees.
Project RIO (Re-Integration for Offenders) provides job counseling
and placement services for inmates who are within a few years
of their release, parole date or initial parole review date. The
program is offered to prisoners throughout the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice.
Another goal of the program is to encourage positive feelings
of self-worth.
"When we're motivated to achieve, so often we can do it,"
said State Rep. Bob Hunter to a room full of Middleton prisoners.
"I hope you will believe in yourself."
Hunter was among eight speakers who addressed the group. Representatives
from Texas State Technical College, Cisco Junior College and the
Texas Workforce Commission also spoke on the importance of education
and the "right attitude" in obtaining a good job.
"There's nothing more powerful than a mind made up,"
said Lewis Martin, Project RIO coordinator with the workforce
commission.
The concept behind Project RIO is that an employed ex-offender
tends to remain out of prison.
"We know from every study and every source that people
who work full-time are 90 percent less likely to get into trouble,"
said Field Parole Officer Nancy Swan.
Middleton inmate Ivan Reed wants to be part of that 90 percent.
Although he plans to come back to prison after his release in
a few years, it won't be as an inmate, he said.
Reed hopes to start his own business providing transportation
to prisons for lower-income families who want to visit an incarcerated
relative.
"Project RIO affords you an opportunity to place a career
in mind for the future and start planning to return to society,"
Reed said.
The inmate did not want to divulge the reason he was sent to
prison, saying only that he was rehabilitated. He has has been
in prison four years.
Project RIO costs about $400 a year per participant. More than
100,000 Texas prisoners have gone through the program since it
began in 1985. Of those, 70 percent have jobs and have stayed
out of prison, according to statistics from TDCJ.
It costs the state about $16,000 annually to house one prisoner.
TDCJ's Pardons and Paroles Division estimates that placing parolees
immediately into jobs saves the taxpayers more than $16.5 million
a year in re-incarceration costs.
"The past is in your rearview mirror," Judge Barbara
Rollins said to inmates at Wednesday's event. "Put your focus
on the future."
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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