6/21/2004 8:46:00 AM Citizen Circle helps ex-cons reintegrate
By Marilyn McConahay
TIPP CITY — It's a common scenario. Convicted felons are released from correctional institutions — having served an average 2.74 years — and return to their home communities to find very little support.
Getting a job can be next to impossible and finding a place to live can be just as difficult, say people involved in state and Miami County corrections. After trying for awhile to resume lives in their communities, many give up and return to their offending behavior.
So say participants in a relatively new program generated at the state level through the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC). Called Citizen Circle, the program's goal is to involve local residents in working as volunteers to assist offenders in returning to their communities and reduce recidivism.
The Rev. John Graham, director of Koinonia House in Greenville, a home for returning offenders, serves as Citizen Circle coordinator for Miami and Darke counties. He describes Citizen Circle as a mentoring/accountability group.
"One hundred-thirty-two people paroled from criminal institutions are living in Miami County without community support. Many of them are headed back to prison," Graham said.
Graham said he used to build homes for a living, but he and wife decided they would "rather build lives than houses."
"We wanted to go to hurting people, and most hurting people are in prison," he said.
"When they get out, their accountability is to their parole officers once a month. They have to have a job, can't carry a gun and can't associate with ex-felons. But, they're offered no support, so that's what we're trying to do," he said.
During an April Miami County Commissioners meeting, Graham learned that commissioners authorized 64 percent if all general fund expenditures for county criminal justice-related departments. That figure represented $25 million for the sheriff's office, municipal and common pleas courts, and the jail and incarceration facility.
A successful Citizen Circle program within the county could reduce those costs by reducing recidivism, Graham said.
But first, the program must get under way.
Graham, along with ODRC Director Dr. Reginald Wilkinson; Bobbie Herron, Citizen Circle trainer for the Department of Correction and Brigit Slater, regional administrator of the Department of Correction, met Tuesday at the Tipp City United Methodist Church with guests representing social services and law enforcement in an effort to recruit volunteers to help establish Citizen Circles in Miami and Darke counties.
"There are not a lot of people who open their homes to people who have a difficult past," Wilkinson said. "People perceive the person who has been in prison as a castoff."
"The genesis of Citizen Circle is part of a community initiative to restore persons back to the community in a way to keep them from returning to prison," he said.
The program is already on solid ground in a number of areas, including Toledo, Marion and Mansfield, he said.
"Re-entry is a philosophy — it's an operating system for what we do. Re-entry should begin at the reception of the person in the prison," Wilkinson said.
Assessment, programming, jobs (and keeping them), family involvement, supervision and partnerships are the main components of the re-entry program, he said.
But, offenders are not yet ready to come home, Herron said.
"They're not equipped and the attitude is 'not in my neighborhood,'" she said. "Law enforcement is holding a finger in the dyke until we're ready to help them. I want to give offenders an opportunity to re-enter the community."
She advocated acceptance, motivation, accountability and recognition as guiding principles for Citizen Circle programs.
During a panel discussion at the Tuesday meeting, Barbel Adkins, director of the Miami County Family Abuse Shelter, said she believes it's an injustice that employers won't hire felons.
"These are people who want to get a start," Adkins said. "We need to provide an alternative to violence."
"We want to build them up as people and we need to attack their inappropriate behavior," Adkins said. "And don't think of them as 'those poor people' — most of them know right from wrong."
"I have hired people to work at the homeless shelter and I can't tell you how good it makes you feel to see someone get on the right track," she said.
Anyone interested in knowing more about the Citizen Circle program is encouraged to contact Graham at (937) 547-6337.
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