Post-Prison: The Reality of Reentering Society

By Molly Balison

I pull off the highway to Kuna, into the parking lot of the largest prison in Idaho, where over 2,100 men live out their sentences. The coldness of the building stands in stark contrast with the 87-degree heat. It’s silent except for the intermittent ticking of the electric fence lining the perimeter of the facility. Double chain-link gates, controlled by officers, slide open after a visitor presses a call button on a metal speaker box and waits just long enough to wonder if they will open. Walking along the path leading to the entrance, the quietness is interrupted by distant shouting.

I wonder if there’s just as much anxiety exiting this building after years of growing accustomed to its cement walls as there is entering it for the first time. A sense of freedom mixed with fear when that day arrives. The day when you turn in your jumpsuit and hope someone will be there to pick you up, let alone want to see you again.

This may be the experience of the approximately 1,000 people who are released from prison annually into Ada County and 600 into Canyon County. There are currently 8,000 people in Idaho’s prison system.

Reintegrating into society and reconnecting with family are some of the greatest challenges faced by those who have grown accustomed to life behind bars. After living in a world of rigid structure and constant control, stepping into a fast-paced society where every decision is suddenly your own can feel more disorienting than freeing. In prison, daily life is dictated—when to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, even how to communicate. On the outside, that structure vanishes, replaced by a flood of choices and responsibilities. Freedom doesn’t always feel like liberation at first, but it always demands accountability.

One woman who knows this struggle firsthand is Pebbles Kellum. The day Pebbles Kellum got out of prison, she had nowhere to go and no one to call. Pregnant with her son, she couldn’t be admitted into a halfway house. Her only option was to go to a homeless shelter in Twin Falls. She moved to Boise with her husband at the time, but found herself homeless again when domestic violence ensued. When she wound up homeless again, CATCH housing services helped her secure the apartment she currently lives in.

“Sorry, I need to take this,” Pebbles Kellum says mid-interview. “It’s my husband.” She answers her phone and talks to her husband, who sits in a maximum security prison enduring solitary confinement for 23 hours out of the day. She hasn’t seen him in 11 years, but she can talk to him when he calls her cell, and they text throughout the day.

Kellum became the Project Recovery Assistant at Interfaith Sanctuary alongside Terrence Sharrer, Project Recovery’s director who has also experienced the prison system. They help individuals find freedom from addictions with a realistic approach where accountability and second chances are the keys to success in the program.

In Idaho, 37% of those serving sentences—including 60% of women—are incarcerated for drug charges. In light of this, Kellum feels passionately that inmates should be given resources and tools to help them manage their addictions, so they don’t relapse once they’re released and end up incarcerated again.

“They need more than just institutionalization,” she said.

Idaho has a 35% recidivism rate, meaning more than one in three people released from prison are re-incarcerated, which is the 31st highest in the U.S. World Population Review says, “Recidivism affects everyone: the offender, their family, the victim of the crime, law enforcement, and the community overall.”

St. Vincent De Paul, an international organization that serves to prevent homelessness, has nearly cut the recidivism rate of the people that utilize their reentry services to 17%. They are a resource that helps people have a successful transition into society through prison pickup, first-day-out help, recovery coaching, and community service opportunities.

In the eight years that reentry services have functioned out of their Boise office on 5256 Fairview Ave., St. Vincent de Paul has grown from simply pickup services to career development services thanks to the ambition of Stacey LaRoe, the program manager for reentry career development and navigation, to visit the Idaho State Correctional Center with a reentry specialist.

The creator of the reentry program, Mark Renick, who was once incarcerated at ISCC, told LaRoe, “If their heart is ready to change, you’ll know it.”

After visiting ISCC, LaRoe realized that inmates needed access to supportive services before being released. Tim Leigh, who spent 20 years at the Department of Labor and was the creator of IDOC’s Reentry Program, co-developed the Career Development Program with LaRoe and was foundational to the program’s success.

Buck Fry, a cohort facilitator, wrote the pre-release program for all the Idaho prisons. “Our program belief and mission are to serve the exiting population of ISCC using stakeholders (experts in their fields) who come to our facility and conduct whole group presentations, small group cohort presentations, one-on-one personal appointments to those enrolled,” he said in a document about the “why” behind the program.

The six-week pre-release program is broken into the following topics: life skills, education, employment, finance, supervision, and graduation.

In the visitation room, sixty men dressed in forest green uniforms sit in plastic chairs facing the St. Vincent de Paul team with spiral-bound workbooks in hand. The dusty yellow and burnt orange walls are somewhat of a warm escape from the sterile white walls throughout the prison. These inmates have something in common besides having a felony — they have a year or less of their sentence left to serve.

Although she’s never been incarcerated, LaRoe encourages people in the pre-release program that, “Reentry starts the day you get in.”

Another key figure in the reentry effort is Dawna Loa, who brings lived experience to her work.

Reentry Career Development Manager Dawna Loa, who was incarcerated just four months before teaching at a pre-release presentation, tells her fellow felons how to talk confidently about the skills they have to offer, not selling themselves short because of their past.

When Loa asked who hates asking for help, two-thirds of the men in the room raised their hands. St. Vincent de Paul teaches felons how to inform others of their needs and how to be honest about their conviction without letting it define them. Getting out provides a fresh start, even if it is more challenging for someone with a record to prove themselves to their potential employer.

“You walk out and you get this new opportunity and you can be a person that’s always wanted to be and it’s kind of beautiful,” LaRoe said.

The organization takes a holistic approach to meet individuals where they are, including helping write resumes and cover letters and practice interview skills. Even if people have an impeccable resume, employers may still toss an application if they see “yes” checked on the dreaded question: “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”

“The beauty is we’re able to be inside the facility and get to know someone so we’re able to screen them out warmly with someone that they already know, with faces that have been there, knowing that they don’t have to explain themselves, feel shamed, or feel any kind of pressure,” LaRoe said.

Kellum visited the women’s prison with LaRoe and shared her story of overcoming obstacles to give the incarcerated women hope. “We’ve made mistakes that have landed us on the path that we’re on,” Kellum said. “But that doesn’t make us bad people. That doesn’t make people that have been incarcerated—doesn’t make the people that are trying to better their lives—a bad person who needs to be looked down upon. We’re trying to get our s— together, and without that help and that support, like we’re not gonna get far.”

One inmate I spoke with noticed that after 2016, more resources and opportunities, including college courses and mentorship, started being integrated, which impacted his personal and professional growth. The inmate not only turned his life around in prison, but became a mentor to those experiencing the same struggles he once did. “Your decision is more powerful than you know,” he said.

Every week, more people are released from Idaho’s prisons with no home to go to, no job lined up, and no support waiting.

The system may call it freedom, but without enough resources, it’s a setup for return. If the cycle of recidivism is to be broken, it’s not enough to open the gates. People have to open their eyes, their doors, and their hands. The introduction of resources and the compassionate support of those who decide to meet those who have ended up behind bars makes all the difference.