Ga. officials urge businesses to hire ex-prisoners | savannahnow.com

ATLANTA — The top federal prosecutor in northern Georgia and the state’s governor said Wednesday that the state and federal governments need to work with community and business leaders to help former prisoners readjust to life outside prison.

Speaking at an event on prisoner re-entry, U.S. Attorney Sally Yates and Gov. Nathan Deal urged business leaders to give people who have been convicted of a felony a fair chance in the hiring process.

Roughly two-thirds of the people released from state prisons and 40 percent of those released from federal prisons end up committing another offense within three years, and a lack of employment is a big reason for the high recidivism rates, Yates said. Literacy programs, substance abuse treatment and housing assistance are helpful for people recently released from prison, she said, “but if they don’t have a job, it’s pretty much all for naught.”

Yates said that simply prosecuting and jailing people is not going to make communities safer. She said effective prevention and re-entry measures are also needed.

Deal said the state has a moral and financial obligation to ensure that prisoners are better equipped and more skilled when they come out than when they were locked up.

“I see no reason why anyone should be released from a Georgia state prison unless they have achieved a high school diploma” or a GED certificate, he said.

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