Like it or not, Vallejo is home to hundreds of parolees.
They’re here because the state of California mandates offenders be paroled to the county in which they were arrested. This, of course, not only ensures the offender can more easily slide back into old behaviors, it also prevents cities from ever freeing themselves from crime.
I understand the state assumes the parolees have a support system in the area where they were caught, but this isn’t necessarily true. And sometimes, the so-called support system is part of the problem.
When my sons were younger, my husband and I discussed what we’d do if either of them started to “go bad.” We decided we’d ship him temporarily to his grandparents in Israel, thereby removing him from the negative influences in his environment. We figured that by the time he’d learned the language and to navigate the system and could hone in on the “bad kids,” he’d have found something else to do.
Our criminal justice system does exactly the opposite, plopping these people right back into the environment that got them in trouble in the first place. And not just the people who lived here before they got in trouble, but also those who just decided to commit a crime here, even if they lived elsewhere.
By insisting offenders be released to, and remain in the area where they criminally operated, you ensure the number of criminals there never decreases.
So, the system is bass-ackwards, but unless we change it, it is what it is. All we can do is provide programs to try to turn these people’s lives around in the hope that they don’t re-offend, because if they do, they’ll likely do it right here. So, rather than harp on how the trouble is their own fault, we must consider whether we personally want to risk becoming the criminal’s next victim.
Fighting Back Partnership runs a parolee reentry program which has had remarkable success in cutting the recidivism rate — thereby saving the state millions.
The hardest part about helping these people adjust to life as productive citizens, is finding them a job and a place to live. One way the program seeks to address this is with a basic construction trades training program that not only teaches them marketable skills, it hopes to find properties for them to fix and live in. The potential benefits are legion.
But the program is set to lose its funding in June.
Someone with clout needs to really get what a bad idea that is for everyone in Vallejo.
In my opinion, it’s cheaper and infinitely better to pay a little to teach these guys how to repair your window than risk having them crawl through it in the middle of the night.
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