THE LEAP STORY

"Oh, my. Isn't that Mary Jones, being escorted into the institution again? This is her third time returning to prison. Or is it her fourth?"

Unfortunately, this is a scene that is played out time and time again in Women's Correctional Institutions. Time after time, in our volunteer work in prisons, we have looked into the faces of women whose eyes were filled with despair and hopelessness. We saw women who were afraid to be released because they felt certain that they were doomed to failure yet again. We wiped the tears of women who had nowhere to go once they were released. Family and friends had long abandoned them and stopped writing or accepting their calls. Some of the ladies wisely realized that they could not return to family and friends because the environments were ones from which they needed to escape. Returning home meant returning to poverty, drugs, and abuse. Oh, yes, some of these ladies had friends waiting for them with open, eager arms. Friends who were ready to take them from the prisons from which they were released to prisons called "crack", "alcoholism", "prostitution" and "physical and emotional abuse". Statistics show that what happens when an offender is released within the first 72 hours will often dictate their success or failure of re-entering into society.

Our country has a prison problem. One out of 100 Americans is in jail or prison today, a total population of 2.3 million. One out of 15 Americans will go to jail or prison in his lifetime. In 2007, Americans spend approximately $49 billion on the incarcerated, which averages an annual expense of $21,000 per inmate. When $1 out of every $15 of state budget funds is relegated to corrections, other budgetary needs (i.e. education, transportation, etc.) are squeezed out. Families and communities are affected by this problem. Children of incarcerated parents are at increased risk for delinquency, which increases as parents experience multiple incarcerations.

Research shows that in South Florida: 41% of recently released individuals report their major problems as difficulty in obtaining employment and financial concerns; 32.8% of inmates released return to prison within 3 years and inmates who receive a vocational certificate in prison recidivate 14% less than those who do not.

Recidivism is defined as a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior; especially relapse into criminal behavior. The national recidivism rate is above 60%. Lack of employment skills are a significant predictor of recidivism. Successful reintegration reduces the cost of re-incarceration in addition to the social and economic costs of future crimes.