Scope of the Problem Over thirty million people in the United States are estimated to have felony convictions. Seventeen million have served time in jails and prisons, and it's estimated that 3 million more will be released from prison over the next five years. The prison and parole populations have risen dramatically in the past two decades, largely as a result of mandatory sentences for drug-related crimes. Approximately 80% of prisoners have a substance abuse problem, yet drug treatment is available for just a small percentage of incarcerated offenders and with the prison system in California constantly expanding, and an administration bent on continuing prison expansion, the number of people paroling to California communities will also continue to expand. These formerly incarcerated people will require a strong support network, access to drug treatment and mental health services, housing, employment, and income supports. Without this safety net, low-income communities and communities of color will continue to shoulder the burden and struggle to support its members returning from prison.

Each year California releases over 125,000 persons from state prisons. Once on the outside, many formerly incarcerated people find it very difficult to secure the most basic necessities of independent living—a job, permanent housing, and access to public resources and assistance. While 64% of parolees in California are returned to prison, little has been done to make sure that all parolees have the support they need to become an asset to their communities and avoid recidivism.

Over 25% of persons released from California's prisons are returned to Los Angeles County, with the heaviest burden falling on the geographic communities of Central LA, South LA and the Harbor area. The high percentage of former prisoners in these communities exacts a great toll; families struggle to recover from separation, parolees struggle to find housing and living-wage jobs, localities and the state struggle to find the resources to provide much-needed re-entry services.

What's more, persons who have been incarcerated often suffer psychological trauma resulting from their confinement, harassment, and maltreatment on the inside. Most do not speak about their experience, as a tremendous amount of stigma is associated with having been incarcerated. When former prisoners discuss their experiences, their conversations occur in hushed tones and are usually confined to the most intimate settings. There are few opportunities to share with others who might have similar experiences; indeed, most people on parole are specifically prohibited from associating with other parolees.

Barriers to Reentry
According to the Little Hoover Commission, less than half of all California parolees receive the re-entry services and support that they need upon release. All too often the only support a new parolee can count on is a bus ticket, $200 in "gate money", and a referral to under-funded agencies that cannot guarantee them housing, a job, drug treatment, training, education or public assistance. We spend 88% of our parole dollars on tracking down and re-incarcerating parolees for "technical violations," rather than providing services and support to them.

In Los Angeles County, parole officers supervising folks who have been released after a felony conviction have case loads of 300 people, and those supervising women with less serious convictions can have caseloads of as many as 1,000. Most women on parole meet with their parole officer for only 15 minutes per month. Over 70% of those on parole will return to prison, and two-thirds of those returning will return for a technical violation of parole, and 1/3 for committing a new crime.

Written and researched by the Legal Action Center, the study, "After Prison: Roadblocks to Recovery," presents a first-ever comprehensive catalogue of how current laws and policies prevent qualified individuals with criminal records who have paid their debt to society from obtaining housing, public assistance, employment, drivers' licenses, and from voting and becoming adoptive and foster parents. "Rather than helping them successfully transition from prison to community, many current state and federal laws have the opposite effect, interfering with the rights and obligations of full citizenship in nearly every aspect of people's lives," said Debbie Mukamal, the staff attorney at the Legal Action Center (LAC) who oversaw the report. "These laws diminish public safety and undermine the nation's commitment to justice and fairness, creating roadblocks to basic necessities for people who are trying to turn away from crime, support their families, and become productive members of the community," she added. The "Report Card" distinguishes between policies that serve legitimate ends, such as enabling employers to screen out individuals whose criminal behavior demonstrates they pose an unreasonable risk to public safety, and roadblocks that unfairly prevent those who do not pose a threat to public safety from successfully reentering society. The hardship that results often leads to them to living on the street where they are subject to hunger, malnutrition, disease and daily sexual assault and physical abuse. Many have mental illness, complicated by addictions and tendencies toward suicide.

The War on Drugs
When mandatory sentencing swept the United States beginning in the 1970's it had dramatic consequences. The prison population was driven up tenfold, creating a large and growing felon class—now 13 million strong—that remains locked out of the mainstream and prone to recidivism (returning to prison following release). Drug abuse and alcohol abuse are estimated to contribute to 25 to 30 percent of crime. Statistics also show that in 1984, 29.5% of the prison population were drug offenders. As of 1998, 58.9% of the prison population were drug offenders. This is a 300% increase over the last 20 years.

In fact, more than half (55 percent) of state prisoners report using drugs or alcohol during the commission of the crime that resulted in their incarceration. Nationally, only ten percent of state prisoners in 1997 reported receiving formal substance abuse treatment during their incarceration, down from 25 percent in 1991. In California, a study found significant gaps between the needs of parolees released in the state and available services: there are only 200 shelter beds for more than 10,000 homeless parolees, 4 mental health clinics for 18,000 psychiatric cases, and 750 treatment beds for 85,000 released substance abusers.

Felons with drug convictions are barred from public housing, from receiving welfare and student loans, and from a wide variety of employment including work with children, with the elderly and disabled, and in medical settings. Overburdened parole agents and social service agencies are generally unable to respond to these largely unspoken needs. As a result, close to 70% will go back to prison, most of them for failing to meet the conditions of parole.

Persons with drug convictions face harsher sanctions than any other parolee population. Until very recently, they were barred from receiving foodstamps, and the lifetime CalWORKs ban remains in effect today for mothers with drug convictions. Convicted drug felons are also barred from public housing, and are often unable to locate affordable and appropriate substance abuse treatment programs, thus increasing their risk of recidivism.

According to a study by the Sentencing Project, in California there are over 37,825 women (40% of the total 92,000 women affected by the national ban) who have been declared permanently ineligible for welfare benefits since 1996, putting more than 54,000 children in California at risk because their mothers are without access to welfare aid ranging from cash grants to food stamps.

Racial Disparities
In 1954, there were 98,000 African Americans incarcerated in the United States. In 2002 there were 884,500. While the incarceration rates for women are lower overall than for men, the racial disparities are equally dramatic. One of every 18 black females born today can expect to go to prison if current trends continue, or six times the rate for white women. Black women born today are five times more likely to go to prison in their lifetimes than black women born in 1974.

Women in Prison
Women are the fastest growing prisoner population in the nation. According to the Little Hoover Commission, as of December 2003, there were 9,994 women in California's prisons and 12,307 on parole. The female prison and parole populations in California have risen dramatically in the past two decades, largely as a result of mandatory sentences for drug-related crime. Most of these women receive no drug or alcohol treatment while incarcerated, and upon release find it increasingly difficult to locate apropriate and affordable treatment for their disease. Without support, they often find themselves using again, violating the conditions of their parole, and cycling back into the prison system. As a result, families, communities and lives are destroyed.

Female parolees may face the most dire circumstances of any group. While a well-established network of sober-living and halfway houses exist for men, similar services are few and far between for women. 65% of California's female inmates have at least one child under the age of 18, and most were the sole caregiver of their children prior to incarceration. One of every 14 black children has a parent in prison on any given day; over the course of childhood, the figures would be much higher. Many women return home to find that their children have been placed in foster care, and/or that their parental rights have been stripped completely. Women parolees also face a host of health and mental-health concerns that are largely un-addressed and ignored.

In addition, a 2000 Special Report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that almost 1.5 million minor children in the U.S. had an incarcerated parent, and 64% of California's female prisoners have a child under the age of 18. Many of these children are temporarily or permanently placed in foster care where they are at increased risk of becoming victims of sexual or physical abuse or neglect. Most are unable to visit their mothers due to the remote locations of prisons, and even phone calls are often too expensive. This forced separation often leads to severe depression for mothers, and feelings of fear, anxiety, grief, and sadness for children, which may lead to withdrawal, or verbal or physical aggression.

Children of incarcerated parents who have experienced separation and trauma suffer from a host of emotional, psychological and behavioral problems. Studies (Goldfarb, 2003; Mauer, Potler & Wolf, 1999; Bloom & Steinhardt, 1993) show that they trail their peers in reaching milestones, they perform more poorly in school, and are more likely to require the services of tutors, speech therapists, and regional centers. They may have severe gaps in their routine medical treatment, and are more likely to suffer from malnutrition. In terms of relationships with caregivers and peers, they tend to be emotionally distant, angry, fearful, or shy. It is not surprising to see them "acting out" or retreating into themselves to suffer in silence. Growing up, they are more likely than their peers to get in trouble at school, to start using alcohol and drugs at an earlier age, to become involved in gang activity, and to enter into the criminal justice system themselves.

Employment Discrimination
Successful re-entry requires living wage jobs, housing, access to drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, public benefits, health and mental health care services, and reunification assistance, among other things. While formerly incarcerated people experience discrimination and policy barriers in each of these arenas, the inability to acquire gainful employment may be the most debilitating. The Little Hoover Commission estimates that 70 to 90% of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed. This unemployment rate can be attributed (at least in part) to discrimination in hiring practices. A University of Wisconsin report found that people with felony records are twice as likely to be denied employment as people without past criminal records, while a Los Angeles County study of employer attitudes and practices around hiring former prisoners revealed that only 20% of the 619 companies surveyed would hire a person with a conviction.

The result of employment discrimination can be seen in the recidivism rate in California—the highest in the nation. Over 70% of California's parolees are returned to prison within a year, the vast majority of them for technical violations. Without the ability to access living-wage jobs, formerly incarcerated individuals cannot support themselves or their families, and are pushed to the margins where daily survival is a struggle.

Health
According to the Little Hoover Commission, as of December 2003, there were 9,994 women in California's prisons and 12,307 on parole. The female prison and parole populations in California have risen dramatically in the past two decades, largely as a result of mandatory sentences for drug-related crime. Most of these women receive no drug or alcohol treatment while incarcerated, and upon release find it increasingly difficult to locate apropriate and affordable treatment for their disease. Without support, they often find themselves using again, violating the conditions of their parole, and cycling back into the prison system. As a result, families, communities and lives are destroyed.

In addition to the dearth of affordable and appropriate drug and alcohol treatment, many women on parole also struggle with severe and chronic physical illnesses for which they are unable to access care, including diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia, hepatitis, hypertension, and sexually transmitted infections. Most of these women are not covered by any type of health insurance, lack awareness about how such diseases are acquired or transmitted, and have minimal knowledge about self-care such as healthy diet, nutritional supplements, and exercise. Many also have not had regular gynocological examinations, nor dental or vision care. What's more, the children of these women also lack health care coverage and suffer from numerous conditions, such as poor nutrition, as a result.