Second Chance Life Skills is a non profit organization based in Saint Petersburg Florida. We are developing a program to address a very serious issue facing our society, the growing prison population and the high rate of recidivism; or the rate at which people return to prison. Not only do we as a nation have to do better for our citizens but in these economic times it is just not feasible to continue down this path.

Consider this it took the United States from 1776 to 1994 to incarcerate our first one million people. It took us less than 8 years to double it in 2002 and as I mentioned we are fast approaching 2.5 million of our citizens behind bars. With these huge numbers of people being incarcerated and the rate of recidivism so high there is no end in sight. And there are major corporation that are perfectly fine with that because they are getting billions of dollars of tax payers money as the correctional system gets privatized.

Often we hear the statistics, there are communities in our nation where 70% of inmates return to prison within three years. 70%!  And with the number of incarcerated approaching 2.5 million it means that even with a conservative estimate of 50% we will have over a million people returning to prison in the next three years. We have become a nation of incarceration and are developing an institutional society that the American tax payer is forced to support at a cost of 40 billion dollars a year.

Estimates are as high as over 50% of incarcerated persons are there because crimes committed relating to a substance abuse issue. Half the prison population. Half are there due to drugs and alcohol. Many call for treatment programs as an alternative but with even higher costs involved in these economic times it just isn't practical. The system is overburdened now!

To correct this it would take a major overhaul of current the legal system and the mandatory sentencing guidelines that have been imposed since the Reagan era when the ?war on drugs? really became a major political issue. There is no real possibility of that happening in the near future so our approach is to augment the current system from within by providing incarcerated persons the opportunity to focus on their lives and address the real issues that brought them to prison.

For decades we have been offering a variety of educational services with a few programs to address these issues that are difficult to get into and sorely underfunded. We have been educating drug addicts and criminals and sending them back out on the streets hoping that they ?get it? and it just isn't working. Not that we don't believe in education, we do and we support it fully and it is part of our program but it is only a piece of the puzzle in solving this complex issue.

Our program funded from private funding and grants will be using ground breaking methods utilizing a multi-faceted approach that includes specifically developed television programming broadcast on the existing cable television systems in all facilities. In simple terms a "prison TV network".  This programing is all geared towards self-improvement and is developed from existing successful programs already in facilities.

But that is not enough, it is only static learning. We also offer a cutting edge delivery system of educational materials which will be accessed with a proprietary, secure net device that connects only to our virtual private network.  On this network inmates in our program will also be able to connect with mental health professionals via chat or web cam outside the facility so they may address the specific issues in their life that caused them to make the choices and end up in prison. And because they are in prison they have the opportunity to focus without distraction on these issues and the time to establish new patterns of living so that when they are released they know how to live a productive life, we are not just hoping they get it were helping them get it. Putting the correction in correctional.

Our program does not stop when they are released from prison. We are working in concert with an organization in Sarasota, Florida that provides transitional housing for persons recently released from incarceration or rehabilitation. Not only are these living areas monitored but the residents police themselves making sure that each other maintains their sobriety and stays focused on their goals. There is a remarkable bond among the members of these communities, they form a sort of surrogate family where they will not allow each other to fail and share the support that they may have never received in life from their real family if they had one.

We also have a commitment from a major local employer that has committed 50 jobs to the first persons that exit a facility enrolled in our program in positions that pay in the area of $15 per hour. This requires that they relocate to the Sarasota housing facility to live in this housing where they continue to receive treatment. And there is an added benefit with relocation because they are not going right back into the same environment with many of the same people where they committed their crimes. Getting a fresh start on life.

And because many person do well while incarcerated but fall short when released we are also planning parallel counseling for immediate family members.  By providing counseling for the persons directly involved in our clients lives they are not being released in to a dysfunctional environment.  We are doing everything we can to insure their success.

If we are successful with just 5% of the US prison population of 2.5 million that would be 125,000 people that would not return to prison.  Each person costs us at least $20,000 a year to house or about 2.5 Billion dollars that we would save.  And if these people become employed at the same $20,000 or just a bit above that is another billion dollars in tax revenue generated making a positive cumulative effect of 3.5 Billion dollars to our economy.  Not to mention the positive effect on society and families.