Freed Convicts Say They Don’t Even Get Lunch Money

Thomas Nelson was given his freedom and a one-way bus ticket after nearly nine years behind bars for credit-card fraud.

That’s all.

To Nelson, nearly broke and freezing cold, that almost seemed like an invitation to return to his old ways.

“When you don’t have money coming out of the penitentiary, when you walk down the streets and you’re hungry, that breeds trouble. It’s too tempting,” Nelson said as he stood outside the bus depot, shivering in his thin, prison-issued cotton jacket.

“They’re not protecting the citizens or their investment. They spent thousands of dollars imprisoning me. They could at least invest $10 in me to get a meal.”

Most states give convicts some kind of tangible head start, or “gate-money,” when they earn their freedom. The amount varies widely.

In Texas, inmates get $100 when they walk out of prison and another $100 after their first meeting with a parole officer. Pennsylvania prisoners get $6 for every meal they’ll need on their way home, plus up to $10 for miscellaneous expenses.

In New Hampshire, convicts get clothing “decent and suitable for the season” and up to $100, depending on how long they’ve been in the lockup. Prisoners jailed for 90 days or less don’t get a dime.

The Michigan Department of Corrections guarantees bus fare home plus $75 to any prisoner who doesn’t have to report to a parole officer after his release, spokeswoman Gail Light said.

But parolees such as Nelson get only bus fare, though technically they are allowed to borrow enough money from the prison to tide them over for two weeks, she said.

Many inmates have savings from prison jobs. Others have bank accounts they left behind when they were locked up.

Yet officials concede that some ex-convicts such as Nelson fall through the cracks of the state’s 33,000-inmate system.

“There are slip-ups in the parole process. Goof-ups do occur, no question about it,” said Michigan state Sen. Jack Welborn, chairman of the Senate Criminal Law, Family Law and Corrections Committee.

In the case of 35-year-old Nelson, prison officials “probably felt he didn’t need any money because he was going to be with his dad. Presumably he’d be fed by his parents,” Light said.

“I can understand him being upset over having nothing to eat until he got to Detroit. I really don’t know what to say about that.”

James Jackson has plenty to say about it.

The 27-year-old watched snow flurries swirl as he tried to keep warm at the bus station recently, hours after his parole from a 3 1/2-year prison term for burglary.

Jackson said he had a warmer coat for cold days in the prison yard than the flimsy jacket he was issued on his way out the gate.

“They should at least back up a guy with food,” he complained.

Ex-convicts need all the help they can get, according to a study of Michigan prisoners released last January. More than half of all inmates would have to rely on someone else for support and a place to live if released, the Eastern Michigan University study found.

Nelson, convicted in 1984 and sentenced to eight-to-30 years in prison, plans to live with his parents in Detroit, find a job and volunteer at a church.

When he was released from the Riverside Correctional Facility in Ionia, Mich., a well-wisher slipped him an envelope on which was scribbled, “From Jesus.”

Inside was $10.

Nelson is grateful for the cash, but he thinks it should have come from prison officials.

“What do they want me to do, go out and snatch a lady’s purse?” he said. “I paid my dues. I don’t want to become another taxpayers’ burden again.”