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May 8, 2007 – The Times-Picayune
Ex-Offenders Get a Second Chance
By Valerie Faciane
At the age of 10, Leo Jackson Jr. had a lot of hopes for his future.
But at 17, Jackson was introduced to heroin. By 18 he was addicted, and at 28, he was sentenced to life for distributing the drug. He spent 33 of his 61 years in prison.
Life behind bars is a struggle, Jackson said, but trying to re-enter society is just as challenging. Once outside, ex-offenders have to re-establish their identity, reunite with family members, find a job and face a society, particularly in post-Katrina New Orleans, that has limited resources to assist them.
When Jackson and 29 other ex-offenders heard about the Cornerstone Builders Program, a new AmeriCorps program that could make their transition back into the community smoother, they volunteered to be candidates. On Monday, they gathered on the ground floor of Catholic Charities on Howard Avenue to be initiated into the program by Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu.
Louisiana leads the nation in the per capita rate of incarceration. For every 100,000 residents, 800 are incarcerated, double the national average.
Organizers hope Cornerstone Builders, administered by Catholic Charities, will help stem recidivism by giving ex-offenders job training and other resources they need to get their lives back in order. Participants will have an opportunity to do one-year stints with various local nonprofit organizations that are helping rebuild New Orleans, and in turn, will learn skills to help them get back on their feet.
"The purpose of the program is to provide formerly incarcerated persons with an opportunity to build a trust account with society by performing civic justice projects in the community," said Whalen Gibbs, assistant secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections and chairman of the New Orleans Civic Justice Task Force. "They could be serving food at a local homeless shelter or diner or meals to the shut-ins, as well as gutting and rebuilding homes for the handicapped and elderly.
"A crucial part of the program is also to get them linked to services in the community that are often obstacles to re-entry, such as housing, transportation and reuniting with family. It's just basically building that system of support that is often not there when they return to the community."
Participants receive free health care benefits and a $11,667 living stipend during the program as well as a $4,750 education stipend upon completion of the program, Gibbs said.
The program, open to all ex-offenders with the exception of sex offenders, has 30 slots a year for three years. The nearly $1.4 million effort is supported through a grant from the Louisiana Serve Commission. Catholic Charities is also committed to raising $439,000 in matching money for the three-year period, said Ronnie Moore, program director for Cornerstone Builders.
Moore said a person could participate for a maximum of two one-year terms.
He said Cornerstone Builders is one of four AmeriCorps pilot projects in the country that deals with ex-offenders, and the only one that deals with both violent and nonviolent ex-offenders and former inmates between 40 and 62 years old.
"The success of this program could lead to replication within Louisiana and throughout the country," Moore said.
The program uses the seven principles of Kwanzaa as its values -- unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. One by one during Monday's ceremony, each of the participants pledged to adhere to those values as they embark on a their new lives.
Moore said the concept of the program came from the late Michael Bland and Dennis Maloney, who worked for the Cascade Center in New York, which deals with the evaluation of re-entry programs and organizes programs based on best practices.
"They got this concept of civic justice by which you change lives through service, that you could actually help people become more responsible and more productive if you give them an opportunity to serve in the community," Moore said. The Cornerstone Builders program mirrors the AmeriCorps program that gives college students the opportunity to work in communities while earning money to pay for college, he said.
Jackson became a practicing Christian while in prison and went on to earn an associate's degree in pastoral ministry and a bachelor's degree in general studies through an extension program offered by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. His Cornerstone Builders duties will be to work with fellow ex-offenders through a program he directs called the Second Zion Cops and Clergy Outreach Ministry, a partnership between black clergy and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Second Zion Baptist Church is led by the Rev. Nelson Brown.
For information, call Moore at 451-8351 or e-mail him at wesleysamms@gmail.com
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