J.O.O.P Buddy

I can only imagine what it's like to be sent to prison, or to spend anytime there. I mean, there was that one time in San Diego, but that was brief and largely my own fault.

But as bad as prison must be, and I'm sure it's awful, what must it be like to get out? Your whole world is turned upside down...again. And your responsibility level must skyrocket. Ugh. I shudder. What a mix of elation, guilt, fear, frustration....it's no wonder so many recently released prisoners end up going back.

Some aspects of what I'm propsing already exist. There are counselors and parole officers and non profits and job placement services but nothing like exactly what I think would be most helpful.

What I would like to see is a person assigned to each released prisoner whoc could help them assimilate back into the real world. The catch is that they would be held to the same confidentiality standards as any therapist. They can't report anything unless someone is going to get hurt. This would give those folks who were sliding back into trouble a positive place to sort things out.

This assimilation coordinator (we'd need to develop a more friendly title) could help find jobs, places to live, new social groups and generally just provide an outlet and experience different than the one that led them to prison in the first place.

It's got to be hard. And I wonder if the reformation numbers are skewed by people falling back into thing who normally wouldn't have had there been just one more person to call.