Overcrowded State Prisons

Staff writer John Hurst wrote an insightful article (“Full Cells and Empty Pockets,” Column One, May 8). Overcrowding and recidivism in our jails and prisons is problematic but as Hurst indicates it can be resolved. I direct Project New Start, an innovative Los Angeles County rehabilitation program for women being released, paroled or court remanded (alternative sentencing) from county jail.

Project New Start was formed 15 months ago as a result of the Private Industry Council’s decision that its Job Training Partnership Act programs should reach high-risk participants who are not served by conventional job-training programs. Project New Start was designed as a county pilot program to determine whether it is possible to successfully help women who have a history of arrest, drug and alcohol abuse, no job skills and children in foster care to become stable, employed and effective parents.

Project New Start is a tough, 24-month program providing drug and alcohol recovery, at least six months of vocational training followed by job placement, 180 hours of parent training and therapy to identify and heal the wounds that underlie destructive lifestyles.

Project New Start has proved to be highly effective. Every woman who has graduated is today leading a productive, healthy, moral and financially independent life. Not one has returned to drugs, illegal activities, incarceration or unemployment. The cost to the county for rehabilitation is $13,400 per woman. But as the article points out, the costs to taxpayers are exponentially greater when rehabilitation is not provided.

If more programs like Project New Start were instituted, we could actually see, in the short term, a decrease in the number of individuals currently being warehoused in our detention facilities.

LISA SMITH, Executive Director, Project New Start, Los Angeles