The bare stripped down basic necessities for someone coming back into society after a lengthy time of immersion in a violent culture of 24/7 survival while incarcerated is shelter, a job, and supervision. Without even these basic essentials, an offender stands almost no chance of changing their lives, and recidivism rates will remain incredibly high. The devastating cost to our society and culture to allow that issue to continue unabated is incalculable. To address this issue in an all-embracing, full, and inclusive manner Governor Kaine created the Virginia Prisoner Reentry Policy Academy through Executive Order #22 (2006).
The Virginia Offender Workforce Development Partnership is one of the four groups working under the umbrella of the VPRPA. VOWDP meets quarterly and is composed of representatives from various state agencies, community organizations, and invited experts. I attend these meetings on a regular basis, and am listed on the roster of attendees as Randy Pepin, Citizen. The focus of VOWDP is to identify changes needed in the present policies and practices in state government that impede the ability of ex-offenders finding gainful employment. These findings are submitted to the General Assembly Joint Sub-Committee On Reentry, and to John Marshall, the Secretary of Public Safety.
Until today Virginia has used the form of criminal justice known as Containment. Basically, lock them up and throw away the key. That is part of our Puritan past that continues to haunt us. The most important item on the agenda for the December 15 VOWDP meeting, for me, was House Bill 1582. This proposed legislation would have prohibited the employment of persons with past criminal convictions for any job that requires working in private residences. Even though I had been successfully self employed in just such a setting for eleven of my 15 years of probation, if such a law had been passed I would have been immediately unemployed. Fortunately, that bill was modified just days before the meeting.
Crime is a form of domestic terrorism that is exacerbated by the Puritan approach. Crime has never been successfully dealt with by punishment alone. Those who have run afoul of the law and those of us who work to overcome disabilities have one thing in common. Those in our society who still embrace the Puritan ethic treat both groups as unworthy of help from any source.