OKLAHOMA CITY — A weathered electrical scooter sits propped towards Jacque Mize’s eating room wall.
For months, Mize, 43, would experience the scooter a number of miles from her transitional housing facility to her job at Goodwill and again once more. Even in excessive warmth, thunderstorms or snow, Mize mentioned, she was on that scooter day-after-day, working to put her life again collectively.
Mize mentioned the scooter is partly a reminder to her of the hurdles she’s overcome since being released from jail in October 2021 — and people she hasn’t. Soon after her launch, she found that having a felony conviction makes it extraordinarily tough to get a automotive mortgage.
Mize mentioned the roadblocks to a second likelihood for previously incarcerated folks like her are quite a few, and the lack of infrastructure for these reentering society means any slip-ups can have a snowball impact that ends in a return to jail.
“Getting your life back … it can be done,” Mize advised the PBS NewsHour. “But you have to be on your toes once you get out because the system is really set up against you.”
Jacque Mize sits subsequent to her pink scooter which was her solely technique of transportation for months after being released from an Oklahoma jail. Photo by Adam Kemp/ PBS NewsHour
Through voter-approved sentencing reforms, historic gubernatorial commutations, and a rethinking of parole and probation, Oklahoma has tried to transfer away from being one in all the nation’s main incarcerators.
During his 2018 run for governor, Republican Kevin Stitt campaigned on reducing Oklahoma’s incarceration price and emphasised the want to assist those that’ve dedicated “nonviolent” crimes and put their lives again on monitor.
In his first yr in workplace, Stitt signed the largest single-day commutation in U.S. history, releasing 523 folks with low-level offenses. Stitt’s workplace mentioned that, in all, he signed 774 commutations, 290 pardons, and 101 paroles in 2019.
In a 2019 go to to the Eddie Warrior Correctional Center, the place dozens of girls had been set to be released, Stitt urged them to attain out to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and to his workplace in the event that they wanted assist with the transition again to life exterior of jail.
“This is really a second chance for each and every one of you,” Stitt advised the group. “Everything depends on you getting tough and making sure that you get the help that you need so you do not come back here and make the same mistakes that have happened in the past.”
“Oklahomans want to help walk beside you and give you a second chance,” he added.
From these authentic commutations, greater than 200 folks had been re-arrested, in accordance to a Department of Corrections checklist released in April and first reported by The Oklahoman. Of these, 21 are again in jail.
Since that largest single-day commutation, Oklahoma has chosen 1000’s extra folks for early launch. More than three years later, previously incarcerated folks and prison justice specialists say the state’s infrastructure to assist newly freed Oklahomans construct a life to keep away from a return to jail continues to be missing.
“It was a harsh realization that things that are really easy for someone not in our situation is a whole different challenge for us,” Mize mentioned. “We have to work for everything that we get.”
The limitations after a ‘second chance’
Mize mentioned she began utilizing methamphetamines at 11 years previous. In 30 years of coping with dependancy, she has been out and in of county jail and jail.
In 2018, Mize was sentenced to 10 years in jail for a spread of expenses together with unauthorized use of a motorized vehicle, concealing stolen property and larceny.
But after serving three years of her sentence, she was granted early launch in October 2021.
Mize left jail with the garments she was carrying and an alarm clock. She struggled to get hold of her private paperwork to get a driver’s license. She paid 1000’s of {dollars} in fines and insurance coverage to get hold of one.
She spent her first eight months after jail dwelling in a transitional housing facility and acquired her scooter to assist her get to work.
When Mize reconnected along with her daughter, the two needed to safe a spot to stay collectively. They looked for months however residence complexes both wouldn’t lease to an individual with a felony conviction on their document or would cost greater than $200 for a rental software payment.
When they lastly discovered an residence constructing that may lease to them, the worth of admission was steep. The constructing administration requested for first and final month’s lease as well as to a deposit, and the electrical invoice had to be paid earlier than they might transfer in. The charges totaled almost $3,000.
But Mize considers herself comparatively lucky for a previously incarcerated individual. She has a job, she was ready to save up some cash and he or she was ready to get hold of an residence.
“I just really made a decision with my life that I wanted it to be different,” she mentioned. “But so many people are released with nothing and end up being forced to go back to the situation that got them in trouble the first time.”
‘Most daunting it’s ever been’ for returning residents
Difficulty with housing, employment and transportation are the commonest limitations holding Oklahomans again, mentioned Lynde Gleason, the reentry supervisor for TEEM, a neighborhood nonprofit working to assist ease the transition for these released from jail. Gleason mentioned the latest inflow of individuals being released from jail in Oklahoma has put an intense pressure on nonprofit organizations making an attempt to assist folks purchase primary requirements.
“Of course we are thrilled to have these people out of prison, but the barriers to getting a place to live or to getting a job didn’t go anywhere,” Gleason mentioned. “It’s highlighted just how far we still have to go.”
A jail cell block is seen following a tour by President Barack Obama at the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Okla., on July 16, 2015. Obama was the first sitting president to go to a federal jail, in a push to reform one in all the most costly and crowded jail programs in the world. SAUL LOEB/AFP through Getty Images
TEEM affords reentry programs for these on the verge of launch to start the technique of understanding what they’ll want to operate again in society, whereas additionally educating folks about packages and providers which can be accessible.
Case managers are additionally accessible for individuals who need assistance securing paperwork, housing or employment. Gina Richie, a caseworker for TEEM who was as soon as incarcerated herself, mentioned she is aware of what it’s like to strive to discover a job or a spot to keep and to be turned down due to your document.
Richie mentioned she was despatched again to jail after she wasn’t ready to repay court docket fines and costs.
“I had three children but no employer would give me an opportunity to work,” she mentioned. “I wasn’t able to take care of my kids; I wasn’t able to pay my court costs and fines. So they sent me back [to prison].”
Released from jail in 2017, Richie mentioned she is now devoted to her shoppers. She is commonly on the cellphone with potential employers, prepping her shoppers for job interviews and even going with them to tour flats, all in hopes of serving to folks keep away from going again to jail.
“If you’ve got that felony on your back, a lot of people just don’t want anything to do with you,” Richie mentioned. “It’s an uphill battle but we are clawing. We won’t stop.”
Terry-Ann Craigie, an economics fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, mentioned an individual who serves time in jail makes roughly half as a lot cash of their lifetime as somebody with the identical {qualifications} who by no means entered jail.
Craigie mentioned the pandemic and its financial fallout have made reentry tougher.
“It’s the most daunting it’s ever been for returning citizens,” she mentioned.
Transitional housing packages are one in all the few instruments Oklahoma communities have to assist former prisoners begin constructing stability straight away.
But there aren’t sufficient of them to assist everybody who’s released. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections doesn’t maintain an entire checklist of this sort of housing, however the charities who run them say they’re usually full, and most are clustered in the state’s two largest cities, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, leaving these in additional rural communities with out many choices.
Nationally, greater than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons every year, in accordance to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The most recent government study of recidivism reported that 82 % of individuals released from state prisons in 2008 throughout 24 states had been arrested sooner or later in the 10 years following their launch. The overwhelming majority of these, the examine discovered, had been arrested inside the first three years, and greater than half inside the first yr. The longer the time interval, the greater the reported recidivism price — however the lower the precise risk to public security.
A separate study by the James Madison Institute in 2019 discovered that states with the strictest licensing necessities for these with felonies on their document even have the highest recidivism charges.
Looking forward
Damion Shade, the govt director of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, mentioned the state is in the center of a multi-year reform of the prison authorized system.
In 2016, Oklahoma reclassified drug possession and sure theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. This change meant that these offenses are now not eligible for a state jail sentence. But it was solely utilized prospectively, that means these already serving sentences for 780 offenses weren’t eligible for reduction beneath the new regulation.
To guarantee folks weren’t left behind, the Oklahoma legislature handed House Bill 1269 to permit folks presently in jail for these offenses to apply for expedited commutation and document expungement. That led to giant commutation efforts in 2019 and 2020.
In 2022, Oklahoma handed new legal guidelines to bolster the state’s workforce and assist facilitate high quality jobs for these exiting incarceration. The Clean Slate legislation will make expungements computerized for individuals who qualify in the coming years. The state additionally enacted Occupational Licensing Reform, which ensures {that a} conviction used to deny a license is expounded to the occupation the particular person is making use of for.
Shade mentioned he believes the subsequent large steps will likely be giving previously incarcerated folks the instruments to achieve success, equivalent to remedy for psychological well being and substance-abuse points; and organising extra packages to assist previously incarcerated folks get good jobs.
“The people who exit prison who have the opportunity to access treatment, to access job training, those sorts of things, by and large, those people are successful,” Shade mentioned. “That is how we continue to move out of the shadow of where we were.”
Jacque Mize is slowly including furnishings to her residence. It took her 4 months to get a mattress and a eating room desk. She and her daughter now have a pet named Rascal.
Jacque Mize sits sits in her residence in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Housing is one in all the greatest limitations for these re-entering society following a jail sentence Photo by Adam Kemp/ PBS NewsHour
Mize was ready to ditch the scooter and purchase a 2009 Honda. She’s been promoted to assistant supervisor at Goodwill and hopes to change into basic supervisor.
She mentioned she is aware of there are individuals who won’t ever forgive her or see her as something greater than a “convict.”
Mize additionally visits with girls going by way of courses at TEEM, prepared to give them recommendation and assist encourage their journeys.
“I just tell them that there’s one thing they have to change and that’s everything,” she mentioned. “If you think anything is going to be the same, it’s not.”
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