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Corrosive impact of prison time on family prosperity

Providence Journal - 1/18/2017

Jan. 18--SMITHFIELD, R.I. -- A healthy, prosperous society is built upon healthy and prosperous families. Divorce, incarceration and poverty undermine a family's health, and, as such, society as whole.

Those concepts were the subject of a forum Tuesday at the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University. Sponsored by the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, the discussion focused on recent findings ranking Rhode Island 48th among U.S. states in terms of family prosperity.

In generating the rankings, Family Prosperity Index co-authors Wendy P. Warcholik and J. Scott Moody examined economic markers, demographics, and family health, structure and self sufficiency. In the majority of categories, the Ocean State hovered in the bottom ten states nationwide.

David Safavian, deputy director of the American Conservative Union's Center for Criminal Justice Reform, emphasized the destructive role prison time plays on family stability. Even upon release from prison, he said, a person convicted of a felony is 50 percent less likely to get a job interview and will earn 10 to 40 percent less money.

"Having a felony conviction is the equivalent of an economic death penalty," said Safavian, who was convicted and served prison time for lying about his dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Prison time increases the likelihood a couple will divorce, and that children will develop mental-health and behavioral difficulties and drop out of high school, he said.

While Rhode Island has the lowest incarceration rate in the country, its recidivism numbers are high. Fifty-two percent of offenders will land back behind bars within three years at a cost of $58,000 per year, 45 percent above the national average, he said. He urged the state to take a close look at state Department of Corrections's policies, given the high return rate.

"I can tell you with certainty that locking people up ain't the cure," Safavian said. "It's about being smarter about crime."

He gave credit to Gov. Gina Raimondo for dedicating $1.2 million in the latest budget to hire more probation officers -- a sum he estimated would cut costs by $4 million over time.

He urged passage of of justice reinvestment legislation aimed at reforming the state's probation system. Those bill passed the state Senate last session, only to founder in the House in the final day of the last legislative session. The six criminal justice reform bills were championed by Raimondo, and worked on for a year by a committee of judges, legislators, agency heads, community leaders and others with the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a national nonprofit organization.

The state must, he said, reduce the amount of time people spend under supervision after they are released and conduct risk assessments evaluating the chance that a prisoner will re-offend. He advocated giving people good-time credit that would allow them to shave time off their probation. Any violations should be dealt with swiftly and in proportion to the violation, he said.

"We should lock people we're afraid of, not people we are mad at," he said.

Grant E. Collins II, senior vice president of the workforce development nonprofit, Fedcap, also addressed the 60-plus people in attendance, including state lawmakers and some municipal officials. He told the group that Rhode Island has the lowest work-force participation in the nation among its welfare recipients. From 2010 through 2014, 77 percent of those receiving benefits did not look for a job, train for a job or perform community service to build job skills, he said.

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(c)2017 The Providence Journal (Providence, R.I.)

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