You may never meet anyone who's served time in jail or prison, but all of us as taxpayers pay for their punishment.
A new free website called remerg.com launched in November, aims to be a one-stop-shop for people with a criminal record to find housing, jobs, transportation, to help them become full members of society outside incarceration.
It’s a brain child of a former private school English teacher Carol Peeples, who said she got burned out doing that and went to teach GED in a prison, which changed the course of her life.
“I looked at these people in prison as my students,” she said. “I got to know who they were, I started thinking about who these people were. That process of trying to understand the informational barriers and learning more about the systemic barriers – it really got underneath my skin.”
According to the latest statistics provided by the Colorado Department of Corrections, nearly half the people released from prison in 2012 reoffend in some way. Most of them had what the department considered “technical violations,” 14% committed new crimes; 97% of incarcerated people in Colorado will be released back in to the community.
“We all make mistakes,” Peeples said. “We should be a more forgiving society about second chances and we’re all taxpayers, bingo, that’s the big thing. My goodness, it’s so expensive. Every time someone fails, it costs the taxpayers about $33,000 a year for prison and the jails are so expensive. We’ve got to do a better job of helping people start over.”
Peeples hopes her site will help to do just that.
“It's an on-line home for people who want help,” she said. “Looking around at all the homeless people in this area, people coming out of substance abuse backgrounds, this is a website to help anyone struggling to start over. Remerg.com is available for free, they can go to the library, workforce center, a community agency.”
“Jobs, jobs, it's all about jobs,” Peeples added. “We put all that information out there, we have the work force centers, all the community agencies, just sitting here this morning working up a list of temp agencies who are friendly to people with backgrounds.”
Peeples hired a former felon to help her with the site. In his previous life, Steve Mursuli used to own a couple of restaurants and computer stores, but he lied to his investors and was convicted of securities fraud and theft.
He spent time in prison and is still on parole.
“There is a lot of anxiety and a lot of lack of information when you first come out,” Mursuli said. “I had to do something about what I had seen, try to make a difference, went to prison with a lot of people my kids age, that was hard to see, people who had a revolving door coming in and out of prison.”
A DOC spokeswoman told 9NEWS it offers a lot of resources to people getting out of prison. An average of 10,000 offenders are released on parole each year.
DOC said it provided training prior to release, community parole officers, re-entry specialists and partnerships with various community organizations, including information on their website.
In a press release the Colorado Department of Corrections says as offenders approaches their release date they're moved to a centralized location in the facility where they can work with staff, volunteers business representatives and parole officers about their future outside of prison.
They're also working on a pilot program to allow for short term jail instead of an immediate return to prison for parole violations. About 20 participating county jails are participating in the program.
Remerg.com is still being populated with information.
If your business can help or hires people with criminal record, please contact Peeples.
