By Kelly Kazek
A newly completed building at Limestone Correctional Facility will be a transitional center for inmates where they learn to better handle life outside of prison. The goal is to have fewer of them return, Department of Corrections officials say.
The 300-bed pre-release center was formerly an Alabama Corrections Industries warehouse that was renovated by Martin and Cobey Construction Co. as a dormitory-style facility, said DOC spokesman Brian Corbett.
While prisons state wide have similar programs, Limestone County’s is the most intensive, said Elana M. Parker, Re-Entry Program coordinator for the DOC.
The facility opened about a month ago and inmates already have been moved to the facility to go through the program, she said.
Limestone was chosen for the more in-depth program because this “institution had space, capability, and staff,” she said.
The Re-Entry Program was initiated by DOC Commissioner Richard Allen, who hired Parker to head it in 2006.
“It prepares people to go out and look for a job, gives them communication skills and health education information, teaches them how to dress, talks about addiction recovery and how to find a community resource organization to assist with the transition and reintegrate them with their families and the community,” Parker said. “It introduces different phases of behavior modification so inmates have a pool of information to get out and adopt a healthier lifestyle so that they will not re-offend and come back into the system.”
According to its Web site at www.doc.state.al.us, the goals of the program are:
• Decrease the overall prison recidivism rates and overcrowding;
• Promote public safety for the general community;
• Reunite parents and children;
• Decrease public health and social disparities within the offender populations;
• Offer referral linkages to inmates and ex-offenders transitioning back into the community.
The Alabama DOC releases more than 10,000 offenders from its prisons each year, the Web site states.
Because they lack referral and treatment services and educational and vocational resources, many inmates will return to the prison system.
“The most recent statistical analysis revealed a 25.2 percent recidivism rate for the current offender population,” the Web site states. “Returning offenders, combined with a constant inflow of first-time offenders, are placing an extreme demand on the state’s prison system and the citizens of Alabama.”
In 2007, the DOC was housing more than 24,000 offenders, more than 60 percent of which had been previously incarcerated in the state’s prison system, according to prison officials.
In addition, studies showed substance abuse was a key factor in about 70 percent of cases for offenders entering state prisons.
