Students assist parolees in Washtenaw's Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative

And King says the group of MPRI volunteers is unique - many are former students who feel compelled to continue helping ex-convicts long after their internships have ended.

The program is run from the Catholic Social Services building on Packard near Golfside. Catholic Social Services administers the Wasthenaw MPRI program.

The weekly "meet and greet" session was Lee's idea when she was an intern and Eastern Michigan University criminal justice student in 2007. She's continued to volunteer since as she pursues a master's degree in criminology.

Participants have just been released from prison - they come to eat, hear presentations and learn about resources to help them find jobs, housing and transportation.

Floyd Brown, 42, attended a recent session just days after he was released from Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson. He said he liked what he heard from a representative from the Michigan Works! Association, an MPRI partner program that helps potential employees find jobs.

"I want a new start," said Brown, who has spent a total of eight years in prison. "It's just changed me. I don't want to go back, because it's terrible there."

Brown attended a Michigan Works! employment workshop a few days later.

The last time Brown was released in 2006, he was back in prison within a year. King said MPRI tries to provide new parolees with social services and programs for the first 90 days after their release to prevent them from falling into old habits. The next 90 days involve following up.

While the focus of the program is on jobs, housing, transportation and relapse prevention, the interns fill in the gaps.

They work evenings and weekends, planning social activities like barbecues and softball games. In the fall, they'll tutor former inmates, partnering with Washtenaw County's Project Outreach literacy initiative.

"Our interns round things out and offer ways for returning citizens to be engaged in positive activities," King said.

King has accepted interns, mostly from criminal justice and social work majors, from the University of Michigan, EMU and Washtenaw Community College. This summer, Washteanw MPRI has 10 interns and five participants from Americorps Volunteers in Service to America, a national service program designed to fight poverty.

The Washtenaw MPRI site opened in 2007, one of 18 sites opened statewide since 2005.

"It's exciting work and meaningful work," said King, who started working with inmates as an intern in the '80s at the Huron Valley Women's Facility in Pittsfield Township.

Interns have played an integral role in shaping the organization, King said.

"They've helped work with low-risk parolees and done case management, helping them access resources in the community. They've helped us do some advocacy work. Those are just a few of the jobs they take responsibility for," King said.

Megan McKinley recently earned her master's degree in social work from U-M and completed a year-long internship with Washtenaw MPRI. She just signed on for another year at the site through Americorps VISTA to focus on workforce development.

McKinley said she's trying to strengthen partnerships between the Washtenaw MPRI and employers in the community. In other words, she's spending time convincing employers to hire convicted felons - and most of them don't like the idea.

"A lot of times when an employer sees the felony box checked in the application, it goes right in the trash," McKinley said. "But employing returning felons is one of the best ways of keeping a community safer."

McKinley didn't expect she'd focus her career on working with ex-inmates.

"We like to say that you get into this field, you catch the bug," she said. "It becomes your driving passion if you're social service oriented. You start to do it, and you realize how big the need is and how they're overlooked."

Keeping convicted felons from returning to jail is no small task - recidivism is a significant and expensive problem for the state.

Recidivism is defined as a return to prison due to a parole violation or a new prison sentence within three years, according to John Cordell, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. Recidivism costs taxpayers almost $100 million per year, with each prisoner costing an average of $32,400 annually, state officials said.

Washtenaw County had the highest recidivism rate - 60 percent - among Michigan counties with urban populations in 1998. More recent comparative data has not yet been studied, according to the MDOC. Data from 2005, the latest available, showed almost half of Washtenaw County's released inmates returned to prison within three years. Statewide, 40 percent of released prisoners return within three years.

Washtenaw MPRI'S 2009 budget is $779,000, and the program on track to serve about 350 participants this year, King said. Every new parolee in Washtenaw County is offered MPRI's services.

Statewide, MPRI's 18 sites will receive $36 million in 2009 from the state's $2 billion Department of Corrections budget. MDOC has the sixth largest prison population in the nation, according to 2008 mid-year statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The prison population stands at 48,000, and about 10,000 prisoners are released annually.

Andre Wallace, 25, got out of prison at the end of July and also attended the recent "meet and greet."

He said after the session that he's never held a job - he's has been in and out of jails and prisons at least 10 times, spending eight of the last 10 years locked up for a variety of charges from forgery to larceny to burglary.

Wallace said he'd like to get an education to perhaps learn how to repair air conditioners. He said he doesn't want to go back to prison, but he's not confidant he'll swear off his old life either.

"I'm not going to tell myself I'm never gonna sell drugs again, because I might not never get a job, and I might have to," Wallace said.

Photos by Melanie Maxwell, AnnArbor.com: Top - University of Michigan graduate Ashley Schwedt hands out information to ex-inmate Terrell Johnson, left, as ex-inmate Andre Wallace looks on during a recent "meet and greet" session. Next: Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative Community Coordinator Mary King speaks during the session.

Juliana Keeping covers the University of Michigan for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at 734-623-2528 or julianakeeping@annarbor.com.