TO BE EQUAL COLUMN 6 A Second-Chance For Ex-Offenders-and America, Too By Hugh B. Price President National Urban League Advocates of the hard-boiled approach to crime-just "lock-'em-up" and throw away the key-love to assert that crime is down because there are now almost 2 million people in American jails and prisons. But here's another prison statistic that's almost never cited: Sometime within the next twelve months, more than 500,000 people now in prison will be released to return to civil society. That's about the same number of offenders released from incarceration every year. Are they ready? Is American society ready? When they are released will these soon-to-be ex-offenders have the right attitude? Will they be ready to try to go straight? And if they have that attitude, will they have the "tools" to try to carry it out? Will they have the educational credentials and the job skills they need to get a job that pays a decent wage and offers the chance for a respectable future? If they don't have those credentials and skills, how likely is it they'll return to criminal activity in order to survive? These questions aren't asked very much these days in what passes for the public discussion about crime and punishment. But three well-known public figures-former New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch, the Reverend Al Sharpton, the activist, and Harvard Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.-have posed those questions, and looked at the alarming answers. It'll be no surprise to anyone that for the overwhelming majority of the coming year's ex-offenders, as for those already out, the future is bleak. Saddled with what former Mayor Koch calls "a pariah status," they have virtually no chance of gaining a foothold on the ladder of legality and upward mobility. As Prof. Ogletree says, "They don't have jobs, they don't have job training, they don't have drug counseling. They will go right back to the same type of vices that put them in jail the first time. It's in all of our best interests to come up with a program that helps people who are coming back to the community have opportunities" to become productive members of society. What Ogletree, Koch and Sharpton have recently proposed to federal officials and congressional and state legislators is a "Second Chance" program. Its purpose is to enable those convicted of no more than two non-violent, non-sexual felonies to forge a pathway back to personal respectability and respectable society. Under the rules of the program, offenders could apply to have a judge seal their criminal records-after they remain conviction-free for five years and during that time earn a high-school degree or attain job-training skills and if necessary, complete treatment for alcohol or drug abuse. The judge could then seal ex-offenders' records to all but criminal justice agencies. In other words, the offender's past involvement wouldn't be available to other agencies or prospective employers, and an individual with a sealed record would be legally entitled to answer "no" if asked about prior involvement with the criminal justice system. The "Second Chance" program is an idea worthy of support. It establishes the appropriate rigorous conditions for ex-offenders to prove they're serious about finding legal ways to support themselves and their families. We've seen plenty of evidence in this boom economy that those at the bottom of society, including young black men with long experience of being unemployed, will rush to take jobs that offer something close to a livable wage. Further, the Second Chance proposal has the appropriate safeguards to the larger society. Remember, the individual's records remain available to law enforcement agencies; and it doesn't take much imagination to foresee that any beneficiary of a "second chance" who then engages in criminal activity would be dealt with very harshly. Most of all, the Second Chance program provides a way out of the alarming problem of the incarceration of huge numbers of people for non-violent crimes American society is digging for itself. Those people aren't going to be in prison forever, despite the "get-tough-on-crime" rhetoric. The cost of building new prisons is already showing what a financial drain it is going to be on states to ignore ways to help ex-offenders become productive citizens. Many of these non-violent offenders are African Americans and Hispanic Americans convicted of possessing minor amounts of drugs: Federal estimates indicate that blacks constitute 14 percent of illegal drug users, but 55 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of those sentenced for drug possession. So, this problem has a racial facet that makes solving it even more urgent. The sense of urgency about the problem of ex-offenders returning from incarceration must be felt by all of America. The Reverend Sharpton urges that "we must give the collective community a second chance to go beyond rhetoric and open wounds and help people who have become permanent pariahs." That's common sense talking. 6 TBE 2/7/2000 TO BE EQUAL 120 Wall Street, NY, NY 10005