Title: Chicago's Safer Foundation: A Road Back for Ex-Offenders.
Series: Program Focus
Author: Peter Finn
Published: June 1998
Subject: Inmate education programs, inmate vocational training
31 pages
72,000 bytes

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U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice

Program Focus
National Institute of Justice
National Institute of Corrections
Office of Correctional Education

Chicago's Safer Foundation: A Road Back for Ex-Offenders

by Peter Finn

Deborah had been on welfare all her adult life--when she wasn't in prison
for selling drugs. Then she got her first job through an employment
specialist at the Safer Foundation, working with a national courier service
as a sorter and loader with full benefits. "I never realized I could do
something like this," she said. 

However, at the end of a year, she returned to report that she needed
another job because the company was about to lay off its regular
employees in favor of temporary holiday season help. "I can't afford to
miss a paycheck," said this long-time welfare recipient who had never
earned a paycheck until the previous year. While Deborah had developed
sufficient skills to locate a job by herself, she returned to Safer twice to
practice her interviewing skills with her employment specialist, to find
reassurance that she could do the work, and to receive well-deserved
encouragement for seeking honest work to earn a living.

Upon release from prison, many ex-offenders encounter problems in
securing permanent, unsubsidized employment because they lack
occupational skills, have little or no job hunting experience, and find that
many employers refuse to hire individuals with criminal records.
Ex-offenders who are unemployed or working in poorly paid or temporary
jobs often fall back into a life of crime.[1] A few jurisdictions have
developed programs designed to overcome these barriers, such as Project
RIO (Re-Integration of Offenders) and Project Re-Enterprise in Texas and
the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) in New York City.[2]
(See "Job Development Programs for Ex-Offenders Have a Long
History.") 

Another group, the Safer Foundation, is now the largest community-based
provider of employment services for ex-offenders in the United States,
with a professional staff of nearly 200 in 6 locations in 2 States and an
annual budget of almost $8.6 million. The main Safer offices are housed 1
mile from Chicago's downtown Loop area in a four-story,
12,000-square-foot brick building.

According to Ron Tonn, Safer's assistant vice president for programming,
"Our mission isn't to get ex-offenders a job but to provide avenues for
them to let go of the criminal life and buy into the mainstream; getting and
keeping a job is a means to that end." To demonstrate its commitment to
this goal, Safer has taken the step of considering clients as having been
"placed" only after they have remained employed for 30 days[3]--which,
Tonn says, suggests they may have truly begun to turn their lives around.

Safer Foundation's Origins

The Safer Foundation was established in 1972 by two former priests. One
of them, Raymond "Bernie" Curran, as manpower development and
training director of a national trade association in Illinois, received a U.S.
Department of Justice grant to provide vocational training to prison
inmates and to help them enter unions and private industry after release.

Spying a golden opportunity to further his commitment to social justice,
Curran asked the owner of a large manufacturing company, "If I form a
not-for-profit organization to help inmates get jobs, would you chair it?"
When the startled owner eventually agreed, Curran moved the grant out of
the trade association into the newly formed Safer Foundation. (Curran
chose the name Safer to suggest the program would reduce crime on the
streets and the term foundation because it sounded respectable.)

Curran and the company owner soon realized that ex-offenders needed
more than jobs; they needed job readiness skills and support services. As a
result, Curran expanded Safer's focus to provide basic education, life skills
training, support for solving social problems, and followup services after
placement. These features have been the cornerstone of Safer's programs
for more than 25 years.

The Program

The Safer Foundation offers a number of traditional ex-offender services--
some of which, as discussed below, incorporate unusual features. Exhibit 1
suggests the comprehensiveness of these activities.

Outreach, intake, and assessment

A wide range of ex-offenders and incarcerated persons are eligible to
receive Safer's employment, educational, and support services, including
juvenile and adult probationers and parolees, community corrections
residents, and persons in the county jail.

Recruitment has never been a problem at Safer. Word of mouth is one
reason. As one client says, "The word on the street was that Safer worked.
So I decided to give it a shot." However, probation and parole officers
refer most clients. In addition, residents at the Crossroads Community
Correctional Center, the work release program that Safer runs for the
Illinois Department of Correction (DOC), are automatically referred to
Safer. Inmates are also referred from the PACE (Programmed Activities
for Correctional Education) Institute, Safer's private school in the Cook
County Jail.

Based on the circumstances, needs, and wishes of each applicant, intake
staff develop a plan for how the person can make the best possible use of
Safer's services. Applicants with minor problems--for example, no social
security card or food money--are referred by staff to government agencies
for assistance and then to a Safer employment specialist. Applicants with
serious problems such as homelessness are referred directly to Safer's
Support Service Unit; if the problem will interfere with success on the job-
-e.g., substance abuse or mental illness--staff refer the applicants to an
appropriate rehabilitation program, reintegrating them back into Safer
upon completion.

Educational offerings

"I was surprised when I started basic education classes," one Safer
graduate reported, "because they made me feel like I belonged. I started to
learn things and enjoyed it. In [public] school, there was all this
competition and the teachers didn't care. At Safer, everybody wants you to
learn, and both the teachers and the other people help each other . . . . I
even got my GED."

Safer's primary educational course is a 6-week basic skills program offered
at the organization's Chicago headquarters, at two of its satellite offices,
and at its work release facility. (See "Satellite Locations--Boon or Bane?")
In addition to basic skills development, employment specialists drill
students on how to complete job applications and prepare for interviews.
During and after the course, employment specialists help students find
employment (or, with younger students, continue their education) while
special case managers, called lifeguards, follow them for 1 year to help
them maintain success. (Safer's basic skills courses in the Cook County
Jail are discussed in the section on the PACE Institute.)

The courses are based on a peer learning model developed by Safer in
which students help each other in groups of three to five members
supervised by professional facilitators. According to staff, peer learning
short-circuits disruptive behavior and hostility toward the traditional
classroom. At the same time, it puts this population's susceptibility to peer
influence to positive use. Peer teaching may also promote client
self-esteem, as students realize they have something of value to offer each
other. (See "Safer's Peer Learning Approach.")

The basic education course at the main facility for youths, known as the
Youth Empowerment Program (YEP), is open to 16- to 21-year-old
ex-offenders and is designed primarily to prepare students to continue their
education after Safer. Measured by the official General Equivalency
Diploma (GED) practice test scores, the 72 students completing the
6-week YEP courses offered during 1995-96 improved their basic skills
test scores by an average of 12.5 percent.

Job placement

"After I'd served 2 years in prison, I hooked up with Mike [an employment
specialist] because my parole officer referred me specifically to him. 'Go
talk to him [Mike], he'll help you find a job,' he said. In 2 weeks, Mike got
me a job as a machine presser, and I was trained on the job. I couldn't land
one on my own--I filled out applications, but no one would hire me. Mike
also got me into an 8-month welding course, which will begin in 6
months, that I can do while I'm still working."

It takes about 3 weeks for Safer's employment specialists to place a client.
However, the job market for the program's clients is shrinking because a
growing number of Chicago-area employers are hiring through temporary
agencies whose referrals are either contract workers (who do not receive
fringe benefits) or temporary workers (who move from company to
company). In addition, manufacturing and industrial companies have been
relocating to suburban locations, leaving in the city primarily service and
technical jobs that require a level of education and skills most Safer
employment candidates do not have.

Despite this hurdle, 41 percent of the 2,688 ex-offenders who participated
in Safer's employment programs in 1996 found work with private-sector
employers; of these, 59 percent met the foundation's definition of
placement by remaining on the job for 30 days. How?

The principal explanation for this achievement is the large pool of satisfied
customers Safer has built over the years. (See "A Long-Time Safer
Employer Tells His Story.") According to Steve Epting, Safer's director of
employment services, "Companies think of Safer as a free human resource
service. We screen clients, even picking up their FICA [Federal Insurance
Contributions Act] statements to verify their claims about previous
employment, and we offer to test candidates for drugs."[4]

A 1996 Safer survey found that a significant majority of Safer employers
reported little or no difference between qualified job candidates referred
by Safer and candidates referred through traditional means. In fact, 78
percent of responding employers said they strongly preferred Safer clients
because of their high motivation. According to Daniel Coughlin, Safer's
former executive vice president, this is "because we screen clients
carefully before sending them for an interview, and then we support them
in their transition to the world of work for up to a year."

Safer's 30-day definition of job placement. Before 1996, Safer satisfied
government funders by requesting reimbursement for clients who
remained on the job for at least 5 days. However, in 1996 Safer, on its own
initiative, switched to a 30-day benchmark and asked the State to include
the new tougher performance goal in its contracts. As a result,
employment specialists and Safer get no credit--or reimbursement--for a
client who quits or is fired before completing 30 days on the job.

Diane Williams, Safer's president, says, "While switching to 30 days was a
bold move, we did it because it was the right thing to do--it represents a
better indicator that Safer is achieving its mission of helping clients to
change their lives." Williams adds, "The change is also a useful marketing
pitch."

To maintain objectivity, Safer assigned responsibility for verifying job
placements to staff reporting to the vice president of administration, who
has no operational responsibility for Safer's programs and is in charge of
billing. Employers must verify each placement to the billing department
by a signed fax or letter, which the billing department confirms in a
followup call.

The new performance goal has changed the way some employment
specialists work with clients. As an incentive bonus, Safer's job
development staff members have the opportunity to share in a pool of
about $25,000 that is distributed based on the proportion of official
placements they make and the starting salaries their placements earn. As a
result employment specialists now pay increased attention to preparing
and motivating clients to remain on the job, and they take a more active
role in following placements with telephone calls and site visits to prevent
attrition. Developers also work more closely with intake staff to ensure
that clients are ready for employment and that they receive the support
services that will enable them to keep the job. In short, job retention, not
placement, has become their principal focus. As one employment
specialist says, "We have to think more in terms of quality than quantity."

Followup

Employment specialists are responsible for visiting companies and schools
to check on the progress of newly hired or enrolled clients. "Once we had
four guys who missed five classes at welding school," Mike, an
employment specialist, recalls. "I telephoned the sibling of one, the wife of
another, the parents of a third, and the counselor at the work release center
of the last one to find out what was going on and to round up support to
get them back on track." 

After clients have been on the job or in school for 30 days, lifeguards--
specially trained case managers--track them for 1 year, offering help with
emerging problems that range from finding child care to entering
substance abuse counseling to resolving conflicts with employers. In
Safer's basic skills courses, each participant meets his or her assigned
lifeguard during the last week of classes to discuss the ex-offender's
immediate plans and to begin to develop a personal relationship. (Safer
participants who receive only job placement assistance do not meet their
lifeguards until they have found a job.) The lifeguard then either
telephones or visits the participant at the workplace, school, or home at
least weekly for up to 3 or 4 months, depending on the participant's need
for help, and every 2 to 4 weeks thereafter. Participants may also leave
voice mail messages with their lifeguards 24 hours a day for a response the
following workday. For example, when one participant enrolled in school
was cut off from public assistance because she no longer had a permanent
address, she called her lifeguard for help. The lifeguard learned that the
woman had fled her boyfriend's house, where she had been living, because
he was abusing her. The lifeguard then arranged for the woman to move in
with her sister in another State.

PACE Institute

"PACE really motivated me, because when I was transferred from the jail
where PACE is located to State prison, I got my GED. The school inspired
me because I didn't like reading, writing, and math when I was in regular
school, but PACE was intriguing. With only 10 students in the classroom,
I got a lot of attention from the facilitator, and I was able to learn things
from the other students and still teach them something, too."

Safer's PACE (Programmed Activities for Correctional Education)
Institute provides pretrial detainees and sentenced inmates in Chicago's
Cook County Jail with daytime basic education and life skills courses,
along with evening (and some daytime) one-on-one tutoring. At any given
time, PACE serves between 75 and 90 men and about 40 women in the
10,000-bed jail--the average length of stay in the program is 60 days. Each
year the school serves more than 600 men and women, and there is a long
list of inmates waiting to enroll.

In 1966 a minister running Bible-study groups in the jail was troubled that
his students could not read and consequently were finding it difficult to
find work after release. As a result, he convinced then-Cook County
sheriff (and future Governor), Richard Ogilvie, to support the development
of the PACE Institute. Then in 1970, Ray Kroc, the founder of
McDonald's restaurants, helped build a two-story facility to house PACE
so that the classrooms would be insulated from the hurly-burly of the jail's
cell areas. A Chicago business executive recruited a group of 100 other
business executives to each give $1,000 every year for 5 years to support
the program. When Ogilvie became Governor, he continued to support
PACE by providing the program with a portion of Illinois' share of the
U.S. Department of Education's adult basic and secondary education
funds. 

In 1986, PACE Institute merged with Safer, and Safer deeded the facility
to the county for $1. Safer pays for all equipment, from chairs to chalk, but
the jail maintains the structure and provides security staff. The Illinois
State Board of Education and the Secretary of State's Literacy Office
reimburse Safer for PACE's educational services.

PACE's nine full-time facilitators lead classes Monday through Friday
from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. PACE relies heavily on one-on-one tutoring to
support classroom instruction. One student reports, "I use what I learned in
prison to help other students learn word processing. They get fired up
seeing me typing 55 words a minute without looking at the keyboard or
the screen; it inspires them to think they can do it too."

Ben Greer, PACE's director, emphasizes, "The course work is introductory
and motivational, designed to get students excited about education so that
when they go to prison or are released, they continue their schooling."
Because students remain in the program an average of 60 days, they each
usually receive about 240 hours of basic skills training. Furthermore, the
1994 triennial evaluation of PACE by the Illinois State Board of
Education found that, of 464 students enrolled as of the end of January
1994, the 37 percent who were educationally disadvantaged achieved
average reading and math gains of 1.52 grade levels.

Students also work one on one with more than 200 volunteer literacy
tutors, typically two evenings each week. According to one student, "I get
tutored in the evenings in math in things like compound interest,
geometry, and algebra so that I can help the instructor teach other students
during the daytime class. I have a brilliant algebra tutor who wasn't a
college student, but she sure knows her math."

A PACE program recruiter periodically advertises the program to inmates
in the jail's general population. The recruiter requests that the jail
administrators transfer appropriate inmates to the medium-security tier set
aside for PACE students. A security officer is present in the classroom and
tutoring areas of the PACE tier, although no student has ever assaulted
another student, faculty member, or tutor.

Recruiting and training PACE's literacy volunteers

"I had a burly gang member I was tutoring who was as arrogant as they
come--but he was also nervous, because he couldn't read," said a literacy
volunteer at PACE. "Then he improved rapidly. During one session, he
started to sniffle. I asked him if he had a cold. 'No,' he said, 'I'm crying
because I can read. And now I'll be able to read to my kids.'"

PACE volunteers must commit to at least 6 consecutive weeks of tutoring,
but most remain for 1 to 2 years. One volunteer has participated for 17
years, another for 12. About 60 percent of PACE volunteers are college
students who receive course credits for the field experience. PACE's paid
volunteer coordinator matches volunteer expertise with student needs.
Along with college posters, word of mouth has proved to be the best
recruiter.

The volunteer coordinator provides each volunteer with a 30-page
handbook and a 90-minute orientation. Tips for volunteers include, "Don't
always expect thanks. You may not receive any show of gratitude from
inmates. They may feel it but may not know how to express it--or feel
embarrassed by it." A list of Do's and Don'ts states, "Don't be conned."
New volunteers are placed in the same physical area with seasoned
volunteers who can observe and advise them. The coordinator also
observes volunteers and reviews their daily self-evaluation forms. Many
volunteers have followed the coordinator's recommendation to obtain
certification as literacy tutors from local literacy training organizations.

According to Greer, the most common problem among new volunteers is
that, once they find that their students fail to fit the stereotype of the
hostile, unmotivated criminal and instead turn out to be polite and
interested, the volunteers think, "This guy is an exception, so I can bend
the rules about never giving him my phone number, calling his attorney, or
bringing him some gum." 

Greer says, "We have to remind volunteers that these students are sincere
but that some of them can be manipulative if they get the opportunity."

Crossroads Community Correctional Center

Six-feet one-inch, 210 pounds, and in his early 20s, Doug came to the
Crossroads Community Correctional Center, Safer's work release facility,
brimming with anger and a jaded "seen it all, done it all" attitude. Before
going to prison for assault and battery, Doug had been an incorrigible
foster child and an active gang member. Guided by his Crossroads case
manager, Doug received a GED in the Safer basic education program in
Crossroads and enrolled in a local vocational school to study culinary arts.
Crossroads' shift supervisor--another former neighborhood youth who had
made good--mentored Doug, helping him keep his hostility in check. After
his release, Doug continued his schooling at the vocational school.
However, one day the Crossroads director turned on the television to see
"tough, hostile" Doug in tears, being interviewed by a reporter. The city
was closing down the vocational school, and Doug was lamenting, "I'm in
my last year before becoming a certified chef, and now I can't make it. No
one understands how far I've come and where I've been." A few days later
an anonymous donor paid his $4,000 tuition at another school, where
Doug graduated near the top of his class. Doug is now the head chef in an
upscale Chicago restaurant.

With more than 200 beds, the Crossroads Community Correctional Center
is Illinois' largest work release center. Safer runs the entire facility,
including security operations, under a contract with the Illinois
Department of Correction.

In 1983, DOC, dissatisfied with the existing not-for-profit operator, asked
Safer to take over Crossroads Community Correctional Center. Safer
agreed, but not without some soul searching. Safer staff were not sure that,
as members of a rehabilitation operation, they wanted to enter the
corrections business. Staff were also concerned about whether running the
center might lead ex-offenders to lump Safer with "the enemy"--the
corrections system--and stop coming.

Eventually, staff concluded that, rather than becoming jailers, Safer would
simply be providing the same types of services to securely housed
offenders that it was already offering to people on the streets. Furthermore,
by providing programming in a correctional facility, Safer could both
begin to work with offenders at an earlier stage and provide an easier and
more certain transition to postincarceration life.

Crossroads does everything other work release centers do and more. While
Crossroads must follow the standard DOC security guidelines and make
security its paramount concern, the center's major purposes are programs
and service delivery. According to Rochelle Portee-White, Safer's assistant
vice president of operations, "Crossroads can help a motivated person to
change attitudinally, educationally, and occupationally, something that is
less difficult to accomplish than in a typical prison since Safer's primary
objective is service delivery, as opposed to the traditional security
mindset."[5]

During orientation week, residents complete DOC's Pre-Start Program,
which consists of two State-mandated parenting classes and nine
90-minute minicourses on such topics as money management, job
interviewing techniques, and stress management. Residents may then seek
employment on their own or through a Safer employment specialist at the
center.

Crossroads offers a basic skills program that uses the small-group peer
learning approach. Courses run for 6 weeks, 6 hours a day, with 3 weeks
between courses. Eighty-six of the ninety-four students in the 1995-96
program improved their basic skills test scores by an average of 16
percent; 12 students improved their scores by at least 25 percent. At any
one time, about 20 residents are attending the basic skills course; another
20 are enrolled in classes in the community. Residents flock to the
facility's dozens of seminars led by a corps of 65 community volunteers.
(See "Volunteer-Led Seminar Series.") There is an extra incentive. Safer
uses a system that offers residents more privileges, such as 72-hour
weekend passes, if they stay active in the program and do nothing to
require disciplinary action for stipulated periods of time.

Program Effectiveness

According to Bernie Curran, Safer's cofounder, "Ninety-two percent of
Safer's clients are minorities; 70 percent have a history of untreated
substance abuse; 75 percent are functionally illiterate; the majority live in
poverty." Despite these barriers, Safer has helped more than 40,000
participants find jobs since 1972, including 1,102 during the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1996. Using Safer's placement criterion of 30 days of
continuous employment, 59 percent of these 1,102 clients qualified
officially as placements.

Excluding the costs of operating the Crossroads Community Correctional
Center and the PACE Institute, and other expenses unrelated to job
placement services, Safer's cost per participant placed was $1,369; its cost
per participant placed who remained employed for at least 30 days was
$1,956. In addition to its employment services, for the 1995-96 fiscal year
Safer provided information and referral services to 13,586 clients and
educational services to 996 clients.

Safer has begun to track clients' work histories for 10 months after they
have found a job. Among a partial sample of clients who remained
employed 30 days, 81 percent were still employed (with the same or
another employer) after 2 months, 75 percent after 3 months, and 57
percent after 9 months.

In 1996, Safer assigned Ray Auclair the task of designing and
implementing a comprehensive process and impact evaluation. The
foundation believed it would need convincing evidence that it was
reducing recidivism to continue to attract private-sector donations. Auclair
will collect and compare recidivism rates across time and across Safer
sites. For the Youth Empowerment Program (YEP), he is comparing
results for participants both with ex-offenders who are program clients but
not enrolled in YEP and with a group of nonoffenders. Exhibit 2 presents
the detailed outcome data Auclair collected as of December 31, 1996. The
data show that:

o More than 60 percent of 72 YEP participants who completed the course
achieved at least a 12.5-percent increase in their GED practice test scores.

o Sixty-seven percent of 72 participants who completed the course entered
school, vocational training, or employment, with 58 percent of these
individuals maintaining their placements after 180 days.

o Ninety-nine percent of participants who entered school, vocational
training, or employment had not been convicted of a new crime after 180
days.[6]

Fund Raising

Safer has devoted considerable resources to securing and expanding
program funding. Nevertheless, because Safer's budget remained the same
from 1991 to 1996, its funding level in effect declined when adjusted for
inflation. The reasons that it lost ground are not hard to find.

Funding challenges

Safer administrators observe that the Federal Government is providing less
public demonstration and seed money than in the past. In addition, some
organizations that had formerly refused to work with ex-offenders are
starting to compete with Safer for this work.

Further compounding the problem of securing funding in a more
competitive environment is a requirement to match public grants with
private contributions. This is done primarily for Federal Title XX funds
that pay for Safer's basic skills classes and job placement services--a
25-percent local match for every Title XX dollar received. Yet raising
funds from private companies and foundations is also becoming more
difficult. "It is not just demonstration funds that are shrinking," comments
Alyson Cooke, Safer's vice president for development, "ongoing public
and private dollars are declining precipitously." The demands on the
private philanthropic community are increasing. Cooke adds, "Private
foundations and companies want to know that their dollars are making a
difference--not on your bottom line but in the community at large."

Private-sector marketing strategies

Despite these barriers, Safer has consistently raised about 6 percent of 

its revenues from private-sector sources--including corporations,
foundations, individuals, and special events--ranging from a one-time, $5
donation to a 3-year, $1 million grant. The typical foundation or corporate
contribution, however, is $5,000 to $10,000.

Why is Safer effective in obtaining private-sector funding? Staff offer
several guidelines for success:

o Learn about--and cater to--the needs of the potential donor. According to
Bernie Curran, "You have to understand potential donors in terms of
whom they want to give money to and for what causes, and then open your
pitch with the aspect of your program that fits best with their interests or
mission." For several years, Safer obtained funding from a prominent
private foundation in Iowa. However, the private foundation was no longer
interested in supporting Safer because the funder wanted its dollars used
for new, not existing, programs. As a result, Safer administrators, acting
on their longstanding interest in expanding Safer's presence in Davenport,
Iowa, capitalized on their existing relationship with the local juvenile court
to convince the State of Iowa and the private foundation to jointly fund a
$510,000, 3-year pilot program to serve youthful offenders in the
community. (See "Satellite Locations--Boon or Bane?")

o Conduct public relations activities. Carolyn Dennis, Safer's
communications director, prepares public relations materials, such as news
releases and brochures, that help develop a positive image of Safer before
staff even walk through a potential funder's door. A Safer board of
directors subcommittee is also charged with gaining more public
recognition for Safer. In 1995 the subcommittee, under the leadership of a
board member with expertise in public relations, orchestrated a billboard
campaign to raise public awareness of the foundation and the need to offer
jobs to ex-offenders. Board members worked with a friend at a prestigious
advertising firm to develop a billboard slogan, "Jobs Keep Ex-Offenders
Ex-Offenders: Give 'Em a Job." A billboard company donated billboards
all over Chicago. In 1996, in an effort to encourage companies to continue
supporting the foundation, Steve Epting, director of employment services,
and Diane Williams, Safer's president, hosted Safer's first Employer
Recognition Luncheon to acknowledge business contributors, enable them
to meet each other, and provide them an opportunity to talk in person with
Safer's entire staff, not just the employment specialists.

o Be assertive. "No," Safer's staff members believe, "is just a request for
more information." When staff were trying to put together a $150-a-plate
dinner for corporate officers, a board member told them in jest to recruit
the Chief Justice as a speaker. Taking the board member at his word--and
thinking he meant the U.S., not the Illinois, Supreme Court--a staff
member called then-U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger's office and spent 3
hours convincing his administrative assistant that Safer could deliver
corporate America if Burger would agree to speak. Three months later, the
assistant called back to say that the Chief Justice would speak. In his 1984
speech, Burger told the assembled corporate officials, "There should be a
Safer in every State."

o Network, network, network. "It gets down to relationships--you have to
spend time cultivating, handholding," says Auclair. In addition to raising
almost $13,000, Safer's annual golf tournament provides staff members an
opportunity to network with politicians, private-sector business owners,
and individual Safer supporters.

Keys to Success

Talented staff

Safer personnel and employers credit the program's achievements
primarily to the enthusiasm, dedication, and talent of the foundation's
staff. According to Bernie Curran, "Good people can successfully
implement a poor program design if they are prepared to change it. 'Good
people' are goal oriented but compassionate, and they can help
ex-offenders change their mindset about how to behave and think so they
can make it in the world of work."

Diane Williams agrees, "Get staff with compassion and a mission, for
whom working in the program is not just a job. Staff are more important
than the model. But they also have to be able to be tough and tell a client,
'You need to get that comb out of your hair and look at me when we talk.'"
These character traits are personified in Williams--an individual with a
master's degree in business administration who left a better paying job as
marketing director at a major corporation after having spent 9 years as a
volunteer on Safer's board and, before that, as a Safer tutor. The longevity
of other key Safer staff attests to their commitment: six top managers have
been with the program for more than 10 years--three of them for at least 20
years.

Volunteers

Safer makes extensive use of trained, closely supervised volunteers,
enabling the program to provide services and secure expertise it could not
otherwise afford: 200 volunteers provide one-on-one literacy tutoring in
the Cook County Jail as part of the PACE Institute, while 65 volunteers
facilitate seminar groups at the Crossroads Community Correctional
Center. Safer also has 4 different policy and advisory boards totaling
nearly 50 volunteers, most from the business sector. "The corporate
community is a key factor in the short-term, startup, and long-term
viability of this initiative," Coughlin stresses. "In starting a new program,
the volunteers from the business community provide guidance and
technical assistance in business functions, as well as introductions to large
private-sector players. These board members also add a great deal of
credibility to the entity and its mission--as well as access to key private
and governmental decisionmakers." Board members are also active in
recruiting other volunteers for Safer.

Collaboration with the Illinois Department of Correction

The Safer Foundation's relationship with the Illinois Department of
Correction is an example of a public-private partnership that works. For 25
years State parole officers and county probation officers have relied on
Safer for posttrial and postprison services. Safer is viewed as a "one-stop
shop" that, in most cases, is able to meet the needs of the officers and,
more important, their charges, through services such as intake, assessment,
support, and job placement. For 5 years the department stationed two
parole officers at Safer's main facility, and they continue to do so at a
satellite office. The officers' onsite presence provides them with rapid
referral access and almost instantaneous responses to inquiries, as well as a
heightened level of overall trust and communication between the officers
and Safer's staff.

According to Coughlin, "The Department of Correction is not just a
vendor; it's a true partner." Marjorie Brown, DOC's deputy director of
community services, uses almost identical words to describe the
relationship: "Ours is truly a partnership."

DOC routinely invites Safer staff to attend its training sessions for
correctional personnel, for example, on techniques for addressing the
special needs of inmates with infectious diseases. Safer reciprocates with
its own unsolicited assistance. For example, Safer decided to station
employment specialists and conduct health awareness and prevention
seminars at Chicago-area community correctional centers in order to
enhance DOC's own programs in the facilities.

As with any partnership, there are still occasional differences between the
two organizations. But the bottom line, Brown explains, is "We're working
together to achieve the same goal--to prepare Crossroads residents and
newly released inmates to go back into society without reoffending."

Other keys to success

"Safer did a lot of things by the seat of its pants [in its early years],"
Bernie Curran remembers, because, vice president for administration Joy
Dawson adds, "We didn't know any better." Some of the lessons Safer has
learned over the years include:

o Devise and implement programs based on insightful understanding of
the lives of former offenders. Think of the clients' interests first. Avoid
fads and quick-fix solutions to complex problems (e.g., using untested
training products and program tools). 

o Target influential political figures at all levels of local government--city,
county, and State. Find out what will motivate these individuals to fund
the program. Politicians must be convinced that supporting the program
will enhance their images (as people dealing forcefully with the crime
problem) and will not harm their careers. Forget the humanitarian image;
marketing directed toward politicians should emphasize cost-containment
and safer streets issues, along with the long-term benefits of reducing
recidivism.

o Balance serving multiple clients--ex-offenders, State agencies, private
funders, and employers. For example, while employers consider support
services essential to retaining their ex-offender employees, Safer has had
to shape its grant proposals--and therefore services--to accommodate the
public sector's primary interest in job placements, while trying to fund
support services from other sources. Despite this juggling act, the program
must present the commitment that the true customers are the employer and
the offender, and that the program's mission is to provide both with
equally high quality service.

o Start each new program component as a pilot demonstration. The Youth
Empowerment Program began in 1983 as an experiment for children who
were not successful in school. When a program component starts small, it
is easier to work out problems.

o Place responsibility on clients to do their part, because job placement by
itself will not solve the reintegration problem. As a facilitator at the Ida B.
Wells satellite office tells new students, "We have a lot to do in a little
time, so you have to bring something to the table--share your knowledge
with the others."

o Focus on continuous improvement. With increased competition for
money and with other groups offering to provide similar services, the
organization must always strive to improve and not feel content.
Reflecting this attitude, shortly after becoming president, Diane Williams
hired a consultant to help Safer develop and implement a formal strategic
plan.

Change Through Innovation

Safer's ultimate goal is to change the mindset of inmates and ex-offenders
so that they buy into the mainstream philosophy of holding a regular job
and preferring the noncriminal life. While job placements, support
services, and followup help form the foundation of Safer's efforts to
achieve this goal, it is the program's innovative features--use of volunteers,
peer group instructional approach, work release center and in-jail school
operations, and focused fundraising techniques--that contribute most to
Safer's achievements. These components provide a knowledge base for
other jurisdictions wanting to replicate a comprehensive education and
employment services program.

Notes

1. Harer, M.D., Recidivism Among Federal Prison Releasees in 1987: A
Preliminary Report, unpublished paper, Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Research and Evaluation, Federal Bureau
of Prisons, March 1994. Anderson, D.B., R.E. Schumacker, and S.L.
Anderson, "Releasee Characteristics and Parole," Journal of Offender
Rehabilitation 17(1/2) (1991): 133-145.

2. Free copies of Program Focus reports on each of these programs may be
obtained from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS).
To contact NCJRS, see "Sources for More Information" on page 17.

3. Other programs typically consider a client being hired as constituting a
successful placement.

4. Safer's employment specialists occasionally work with companies,
clients, and local offices of the Illinois State Employment Service to
ensure eligibility for various programs. One is the U.S. Department of
Labor's Work Opportunities Tax Credit (WOTC), which, as successor to
the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC), offers tax credits to employers if
their operations and the prospective employee's residence are in a
designated Empowerment Zone.

5. There has been no evaluation of the Crossroads Community
Correctional Center. The few previous studies of work release have shown
some positive results (mostly on employment rather than recidivism).
However, these studies did not randomly assign some inmates to work
release and others to remain in prison, nor did they otherwise control
adequately for preexisting differences between work release inmates and
comparison groups of other inmates. As a result, it is not possible to
attribute the favorable outcomes for the work release inmates to
participation in a community corrections program. Two carefully designed
evaluations of Washington State's work release program, sponsored by NIJ
and conducted between 1991 and 1994, found that the program did not
reduce offender recidivism. However, the program achieved its most
important goal--preparing inmates for final release and facilitating their
adjustment to the community. Furthermore, the program did not cost the
State more than it would have if the releasees had remained in prison. See
Turner, C., and J. Petersilia, Work Release: Recidivism and Corrections
Costs in Washington State, Research in Brief, Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, December 1996.

6. A master's degree student at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois,
compared the recidivism rates for 100 participants who completed the
Safer Foundation's preemployment program in 1992 with the recidivism
rates of all 9,844 adult felons released by the Illinois Department of
Correction (DOC) in 1989. The student found an 8-percent recidivism rate
for Safer participants compared with a 46-percent rate for the comparison
group. However, the student concluded that while "a comparison of these
two figures demonstrated that the Safer program was significantly
successful in reducing recidivism . . . , limiting factors suggest that this is
a questionable conclusion." The limiting factors were the small sample
size; the Safer group's self-selection into the program, which indicated
different motivation levels compared with the comparison group; the use
of self-reports among Safer participants for several variables; and a
significant time interval difference between the 18-month period used for
measuring recidivism among the Safer sample compared with a 36-month
time period used for the DOC sample. See Kamon, M., "The Safer
Foundation: Using Employment to Influence the Recidivism Rate for
Ex-Offenders," June 1994.

-------------------------------

About This Study

This Program Focus was prepared by Peter Finn, Senior Research
Associate, Abt Associates Inc. Finn's forthcoming NIJ publications on
offender job training and placement include Successful Job Placement for
Ex-Offenders: The Center for Employment Opportunities; The Orange
County, Florida, Jail Educational and Vocational Programs; The Delaware
Department of Correction Life Skills Program; and Texas's Project RIO
(Re-Integration of Offenders). This project was supported by contract
number OJP-94-C-007; Marilyn Moses is the Project Monitor.

-------------------------------

Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the
U.S. Department of Justice.

-------------------------------

The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the
Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

The National Institute of Corrections is a component of the Federal Bureau
of Prisons.

The Office of Correctional Education is a division of the Office of
Vocational and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education.

-------------------------------

NCJ 167575

June 1998

-------------------------------

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-------------------------------

For the most up-to-date program information, 

see the agency Web pages:

National Institute of Justice:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij

National Institute of Corrections:    
http://www.bop.gov/nicpg/nicmain.html

Office of Correctional Education:    
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE/OCE

-------------------------------

NIJ-NIC-OCE Collaboration on Offender Job Training, Placement, and
Retention

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the National Institute of
Corrections (NIC), and the U.S. Department of Education's Office of
Correctional Education (OCE) have cooperated on a number of projects.
These continuing efforts are described below:

This Program Focus, Chicago's Safer Foundation: A Road Back for
Ex-Offenders, is one in a series of publications sponsored by NIJ, NIC,
and OCE that focus on various approaches to offender job training,
placement, and retention.[a]

Our agencies partnered nearly 3 years ago to fill an information void in
this area. Since then, we have been overwhelmed by the response from
corrections professionals, policymakers, and industry representatives. We
are excited about activities under way and about the potential of other
partnerships we are exploring.

In fiscal year 1997, NIC's Office of Correctional Job Training and
Placement offered two 1-week pilot training sessions for offender
employment specialists at its Longmont Training Academy in Longmont,
Colorado. Applications for these training sessions outnumbered those
received for any one course in the academy's history. Because of the
overwhelming demand, NIC will offer three additional offender
employment specialist training sessions at the academy in fiscal year 1998.

NIC has also recently funded an effort to adapt and modify a software
program currently used by the State of Washington's Department of
Corrections to meet the community referral needs of released offenders.
The goal is to make this software package available to other correctional
agencies that wish to provide community resource referral services to
soon-to-be-released offenders. Offender employment specialists who have
reviewed the package report that, if successfully replicated, it would prove
to be an invaluable tool in assisting offenders who are returning to the
community.

Last spring OCE conducted a grant competition focusing on life skills
training for offenders, including education and workplace readiness.
Awards ranging from $300,000 to $450,000 were made in September
1997 to a number of correctional agencies, with program implementation
beginning in most sites immediately after the grants were awarded.

Our agencies continue to work with the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Inmate
Placement Program Branch in identifying State and local offender job
training and placement programs that could be accessed by offenders
released from the Federal system. As a result of these collaborative efforts,
the Bureau contracted with a firm to test the feasibility of replicating the
Project Re-Enterprise mock job fair concept in its facilities. The first mock
job fair was held on April 24, 1997, at the Bureau's Bastrop, Texas, facility
and proved to be a great success. A second Project Re-Enterprise event is
planned for the Federal Prison Camp for Women at Bryan, Texas. The
Bureau is also currently exploring the possibility of partnering with the
Safer Foundation to operate as a resource and ex-offender job placement
service for Federal offenders returning to Chicago, Illinois.

Finally, we are pleased that the National Occupational Information
Coordinating Council (NOICC) has joined us in our efforts to explore
ways to make its resources available to corrections professionals working
in offender job training, placement, and retention. In July 1997 the Federal
Bureau of Prisons, NIC, and NOICC gave a presentation at the national
conference of State Occupational Coordinating Councils in Tacoma,
Washington, which received a very encouraging response.

Clearly, offender job training, placement, and retention are challenging
issues that will require our sustained efforts and attention over time. While
every effort is being made on the Federal level to collaborate and share
resources, we continue to rely on those of you on the front lines to share
with us your knowledge, experience with promising practices, and
identification of areas that need to be addressed. Our staffs continue to
revise short- and long-term joint strategies according to your input.

Jeremy Travis
Director
National Institute of Justice

Morris Thigpen
Director
National Institute of Corrections

Richard Smith
Director
Office of Correctional Education

Notes

a. Moses, Marilyn, Project Re-Enterprise: A Texas Program, Program
Focus, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, August 1996 (NCJ 161448); and the soon-to-be-published
Successful Job Placement for Ex-Offenders: The Center for Employment
Opportunities (NCJ 168102), Texas' Project RIO (Re-Integration of
Offenders) (NCJ 168637), and The Delaware Department of Correction
Life Skills Program (NCJ 169590).

-------------------------------

Highlights

Many ex-offenders have never accepted the mainstream philosophy of
holding a full-time, well-paying job as the way to earn a living. Others
who seek such employment cannot find it or, once they are hired, cannot
keep it. Founded in 1972, the Safer Foundation in Chicago is the largest
community-based provider of employment services for ex-offenders in the
United States, with a professional staff of nearly 200 in 6 locations. Safer
helps ex-offenders not only to find good jobs but also to develop a mindset
that helps to ensure they will remain employed and succeed in life.

The Safer Foundation takes several unusual steps to achieve these goals:

o Safer reaches many offenders while they are still incarcerated in order to
begin to change their outlook as early as possible. The foundation runs a
private school, the PACE (Programmed Activities for Correctional
Education) Institute, in the Cook County Jail, and it operates a work
release center, the Crossroads Community Correctional Center, that
provides extensive educational and employment readiness programming.

o Safer uses a small-group, peer-based approach in its basic education
skills programs, developed especially to overcome the barriers to learning
most ex-offenders face.

o Special case managers, called lifeguards, are available to help clients
address transitional problems for 1 year after they have secured
employment.

Other special features of the Safer Foundation include using satellite
offices to expand its service area and developing creative fundraising
approaches to raise money from State governments, private corporations,
and foundations.

In 1996, Safer helped 1,102 clients to find jobs; nearly 60 percent of these
clients were still employed after 30 days--Safer's definition of placement.
Of the 72 participants who completed Safer's basic education course for
16- to 21-year-old ex-offenders (out of 84 who initially participated in the
course), more than two-thirds entered school, vocational training, or
employment, with 58 percent of those individuals maintaining their
placements after 180 days. After 180 days, only one participant who had
completed the course had been convicted of a new crime.

-------------------------------

Job Development Programs for Ex-Offenders Have a Long History

Concerned about the high percentage of inmates released from prisons and
jails who do not reintegrate into society and who eventually fall back into
a life of crime, Congress, in the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994, ordered the creation of a new office in the U.S.
Department of Justice to encourage and support job training and placement
programs in State and local governments for released prisoners and
probationers--the National Institute of Corrections' Office of Correctional
Job Training and Placement. Similarly, in 1996 the Federal Bureau of
Prisons created the Inmate Placement Program Branch, dedicated to
enhancing Federal inmates' chances of securing employment after release.
However, the Federal Government's attention to this problem is not new.

Government programs to bring offenders into the labor market began with
the passage of the Manpower Demonstration and Training Act of 1962
(MDTA) and the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. As a result of this
legislation, hundreds of employment and training programs for offenders
and ex-offenders were created. However, shortcomings in the evaluation
methods used made it difficult to determine if the efforts improved
employment opportunities or reduced recidivism among ex-offenders.

During the 1970s, more controlled experiments of ex-offender
employment programs were undertaken, in particular, the supported work
demonstrations implemented by the Manpower Demonstration Research
Corporation (MDRC). With one exception--a study of work crews for
unemployed ex-offenders and former heroin addicts that created a lasting
effect on employment and earnings, but not on recidivism--research results
showed that the programs failed to improve participants' employment or
earnings or to reduce recidivism. In 1982 when Comprehensive
Employment and Training Act (CETA) funding ended, programs for
ex-offenders largely disappeared. Funding grew for manpower programs
for various disadvantaged populations, primarily through the Job Training
Partnership Act (JTPA). But a controlled experiment at 16 JTPA sites
failed to find evidence of positive effects on subsequent arrests for
out-of-school youths, including a subgroup of youths with arrest
records.[a]

There have been few recent systematic evaluations of job placement and
development programs for ex-offenders.[b] However, a 1992 study of
Project RIO (Re-Integration of Offenders), a statewide program run by the
Texas Workforce Commission that provides job placement services to
more than 15,000 parolees each year, found that after 1 year, 69 percent of
program participants secured employment compared with only 36 percent
of a group of nonparticipant parolees. Furthermore, during the year after
release, 48 percent of high-risk RIO participants were rearrested compared
with 57 percent of nonprogram high-risk parolees; 23 percent of RIO
participants were reincarcerated compared with 38 percent of non-RIO
parolees. Although parolees in the study were not assigned randomly to
control and treatment groups, the two groups of ex-offenders studied had
similar demographic characteristics and risks of reoffending.[c]

Why so few successes? Perhaps it is because earlier programs were not
intensive enough; because many offenders suffer from substance abuse,
mental illness, and lack of affordable housing; and because inadequate
attention was devoted to job readiness as opposed to job placement.[d]
The Safer Foundation, like Project RIO, tries to address these deficiencies
by providing intensive educational and life skills services, social support,
and job placement assistance. As a result, the Safer Foundation may have a
much better chance than previous efforts of effecting lasting improvement
among the ex-offenders it serves.

Notes

a. Bloom, H., L.O. Orr, G. Cave, S.H. Bell, F. Doolittle, and W. Lin, The
National JTPA Study. Overview: Impacts, Benefits and Costs of Title II-
A, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Abt Associates Inc., 1994.

b. McDonald, D.C., D.T. Rodda, S.H. Bell, and D.E. Hunt, Transition
Services and Supervision for Released Prisoners: Implications of Research
Findings for Program Development, draft report prepared for the U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Abt Associates Inc., 1995.

c. Menon, R., C. Blakely, D. Carmichael, and L. Silver, An Evaluation of
Project RIO Outcomes: An Evaluative Report, College Station, Texas:
Texas A&M University, Public Policy Resources Laboratory, July 1992.

d. McDonald, D.C., and D.T. Rodda, "Offender Employment and Training
Programs: A Review of the Research," unpublished paper, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Abt Associates Inc., 1994.

-------------------------------

Safer's Peer Learning Approach

The excerpts below from the Safer Foundation's Facilitator Training
Manual for the Basic Skills Employability Training Program summarize
the major principles of the peer approach facilitators use.

o Training activities are peer centered, and participant interaction takes the
place of textbooks and worksheets as the medium of instruction. Most
class work is done in ad hoc aggregations of three to five members. Within
these aggregations the more proficient members instruct those who are less
proficient, or members with comparable abilities work jointly to devise
solutions to new problem material. Facilitators make frequent but
relatively brief contact with each of these groups to assess progress,
diagnose difficulties, answer questions, and provide information.

o Facilitators function as a source of information and performance
feedback. They are the impetus for activity, but they strive to avoid
becoming the focus of group attention.

o An inductive approach toward subject matter governs the provision of all
training. The direction of training is from the specific case to the general
principle. Students are not instructed in generalized, abstract rules or
formulas, and sample solutions to problems are seldom demonstrated prior
to the assignment of problems for study. Facilitators are more likely to
instruct with questions than with declarations.

o Differences between students and facilitators are assertively addressed as
violations of agreements between equals, not as the students' transgression
of the facilitators' rules.

o Most discipline problems are alleviated through the active, participatory
role of students. When not confined to a passive, spectator role, they are
less subject to the boredom that spawns disruptive behavior.

-------------------------------

A Long-Time Safer Employer Tells His Story


Frank, the plant manager of a privately owned furniture manufacturing
company that employs about 60 workers, remembers the day in 1984
when Mike, a Safer employment specialist, called him unexpectedly to ask
if he would be interested in interviewing any Safer clients. Frank said he
would. Since then, he has hired more than 50 Safer clients, 12 during a
single 6-month stretch in 1996, with most employees staying 1 or 2 years.

"Some are good and some aren't," Frank says, adding, "they're as good as
what I could hire off the street. But Mike screens them carefully." Frank
says if he places an ad in the paper, "I could get 15 people and none are
any good; in the meantime, I've wasted my time filling out all these forms
on each one. And employment agencies don't send me good people, either.
So Mike saves me time. And he provides people quickly."

On occasion, Frank has called Mike regarding an employee who arrives
late. "Mike calls right back and takes care of the problem--he's rougher on
these guys than I am. After that, the guy comes on time. And Mike comes
here to check on them and calls me to see if I'm having any problems. He
came three times in the last 2 weeks."

The plant pays an hourly wage of $8, rising over time to $12, with full
benefits. Frank recently promoted one client from forklift operator to press
brake operator, while another "excellent guy" in the spray department
"could become foreman here soon."

-------------------------------

Volunteer-Led Seminar Series

In 1996, Safer developed a series of volunteer-led discussion groups at
Crossroads to help prevent idleness and enhance residents' life skills. An
initial $15,000 grant was used primarily to pay for a portion of the salary
and training for a new volunteer coordinator, LaMetra Curry.

Curry began the program by distributing a survey asking residents to
identify topics they would like to have covered and then ranking their
responses. Money management was first, followed by spiritual programs,
parenting skills, GED education, employment training, and goal setting.
Curry then recruited volunteers from the community who could address
these topics.

Curry recruits largely from personal contacts at local events. Volunteers
commit themselves in writing to provide 3 hours of training a week for no
fewer than 6 months; however, volunteers do not deal with issues related
to their own occupations. For instance, a museum director Curry recruited
at a park function discusses motivation, not art. Curry says, "Volunteers
like the opportunity to talk about things that are unrelated to their jobs."
One volunteer reported, "The guys are actually attentive, and I want to
sign up for another 6 months."

Screened and trained to avoid lecturing, the volunteers facilitate the
groups, encouraging participants to share their own knowledge and
experiences with each other. Most groups meet weekly. At the end of
every session, each volunteer fills out a form describing what happened,
while participants write down what they learned, how the information or
skills will help them after release, and whether they want another session
on the topic.

-------------------------------

Satellite Locations--Boon or Bane?

The Safer Foundation differs from many similar programs in the number
of satellite branches it operates. Although not without problems, these
outposts are important for bringing the program to the people who most
need its services and for serving as feeder locations for the main Chicago
facility.

Ida B. Wells

Safer runs a small branch office in the Ida B. Wells Public Housing
Development on the south side of Chicago. Ida B., as it is called, offers
classes for youths and adults in addition to job placement assistance.

According to program manager Rochelle Toyozumi, "The toughest
problem at Ida B. is to get the residents to trust the program, because it is
initially viewed as part of the system, and they don't trust the system.
Besides, different gangs will not meet at the same location together." As a
result, clients are warned, "When you come in here, you're in the Safer
family; if you wear gang colors or symbols, flash signs, or talk gang talk,
you're out--immediately." Nonetheless, the office has become so popular
that some residents with no criminal records claim they are ex-offenders.

Toyozumi feels that being located in a housing project has its negative
side. "Clients enrolled in our Chicago office have to get out of their
parochial neighborhoods just to get to the Safer office, whether by
subway, bus, or walking. But here, they can join Safer but stay put in the
project and never see what the real world of work is like. They're afraid to
venture out even five blocks for a job. So they also don't know where
anything is. To force them out of the neighborhood, we had to resort to
requiring them to go get IDs or taking them on field trips to show them
where Safer graduates--their friends--go every day to work or school." But
the advantage of a satellite office, Toyozumi concludes, "is that we can
reach out to clients and get them into the program because it's so close.
Then, once we have them hooked, we can wean them out of the
neighborhood."

Rock Island and Davenport

In 1978, a satellite office was opened in Rock Island, Illinois, a 3-hour,
170-mile drive from Chicago, to provide support services and
employment-related programming. Another satellite office was established
in Davenport, Iowa, in 1980. Bob Ray, then Governor of Iowa, invited
Safer into Davenport, just across the Mississippi River from Rock Island,
after he became aware that Iowa parolees and probationers were crossing
the State line seeking Safer's services in Rock Island. Safer accepted the
invitation.

Satellite Offices: A Mixed Bag

According to Joy Dawson, vice president for administration, "You need to
be careful not to expand programmatically and geographically beyond
your ability to manage your activities, or you may self-destruct by trying
to do too much." Dawson says, "We have also had management,
operational, and funding difficulties in the offsite offices in Davenport and
Rock Island. Staff felt isolated because of the 3-hour drive from Chicago,
their clients had different needs than our clients in Chicago, and some
locals wondered why an outside agency was setting up shop in their
community and siphoning off overhead money to subsidize its out-of-town
headquarters."

As a result, Daniel Coughlin, Safer's former executive vice president,
warns, "You have to be welcomed into the community wherever you set
up a satellite office. This means developing a relationship with the
neighborhood before you even open your doors. For example, establish a
local board of directors with local business representatives and purchase
some services locally even though centralizing them at the head office is
more cost effective and ensures better quality control." One Safer site buys
its letterhead stationery and business cards from a local vendor to show
that the satellite's "profits" are not being skimmed off for the Chicago
office.

Despite these problems and concerns, Safer staff now feel ready to expand
into another Illinois work release center (but only in the Chicago area) and
to replicate its public housing model in other housing developments in the
State.

-------------------------------

Sources for More Information

The Safer Foundation distributes information about its programs. Contact:

Carolyn Dennis
Marketing Communications Manager
Safer Foundation
571 West Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60661-5701
Telephone: 312-922-8489
Fax: 312-922-0839

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the principal research, evaluation,
and development agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. For
information about NIJ's efforts in corrections, program development, and
corporate partnership development, contact:

Marilyn Moses
Program Manager
National Institute of Justice
810 Seventh Street N.W.
Room 7114
Washington, DC 20531
Telephone: 202-514-6205
Fax: 202-307-6256
E-mail: moses@ojp.usdoj.gov
URL: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij

NIJ established the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)
in 1972 to serve as a national and international clearinghouse for the
exchange of criminal justice information. For information about topical
searches, bibliographies, custom searches, and other available services,
contact:

NCJRS
P.O. Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20849-6000
Telephone: 800-851-3420 (8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern time, Monday-
Friday)
URL: http://www.ncjrs.org

For specific criminal justice questions or requests via the Internet, send an
e-mail message to askncjrs@ncjrs.org.

The Office of Correctional Education (OCE) within the U.S. Department
of Education was created by Congress in 1991 to provide technical
assistance, grant funding, and research data to the corrections and
correctional education fields. To speak with a program specialist or to be
placed on OCE's mailing list to receive grant announcements, OCE's
quarterly newsletter, and other publications, contact:

Richard Smith
Director
Office of Correctional Education
Office of Vocational and Adult Education
U.S. Department of Education
600 Independence Avenue S.W.
MES 4529
Washington, DC 20202-7242
Telephone: 202-205-5621
Fax: 202-205-8793
URL: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE/OCE

The National Institute of Corrections' Office of Correctional Job Training
and Placement (OCJTP) was created in 1995 to:

o Cooperate with and coordinate the efforts of other Federal agencies in
the areas of job training and placement.

o Collect and disseminate information on offender job training and
placement programs, accomplishments, and employment outcomes.

o Provide training to develop staff competencies in working with
offenders and ex-offenders.

o Provide technical assistance to State and local training and employment
agencies.

For more information, contact:

John Moore
Coordinator
Office of Correctional Job Training and Placement
National Institute of Corrections
320 First Street N.W.
Washington, DC 20534
Telephone: 800-995-6423, Ext. 147

The Correctional Education Association (CEA) is affiliated with the
American Correctional Association as an international professional
organization serving education program needs within the field of
corrections. Membership includes teachers and other community
corrections program staff. Members receive quarterly journals and
newsletters, an annual directory, and a yearbook. Annual conferences are
held in each of CEA's nine regions and many of its State chapters. One of
the regions hosts an international conference that features a variety of
substantive workshops on successful educational strategies. For more
information, call 301-918-1915 or contact:

Alice Tracy
Assistant Director
Correctional Education Association
4380 Forbes Boulevard
Lanham, MD 20706-4322
Telephone: 301-918-1912
Fax: 301-918-1846

The National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee
(NOICC) and its 56 counterpart State Occupational Information
Coordinating Committees (SOICCs) are a primary source of information
and training related to individual career exploration, choice, preparation,
and institutional selection and design of education and training programs.
For information about NOICC and the SOICCs, visit the NOICC home
page at http://www.noicc.gov or contact:

Burton L. Carlson
Coordinator
State and Interagency Network
2100 M Street N.W.
Suite 156
Washington, DC 20037
Telephone: 202-653-5665, Ext. 12
Fax: 202-653-2123
E-mail: carlson-burton@dol.gov