Cut prison crowding with jobs halfway houses

During the president's speech to reform the criminal justice system, he referred to our prison population as the highest in the industrialized world but said nothing about one of its principle causes - the high rate of recidivism.

Apparently, its main contributor is the inability of ex-convicts to get a job since many private companies won't hire them because of their record.

Why not create working community halfway houses, utilizing the diversity of skills they acquired while in prison, initially subsidized by the government, employing bona fide contracts administered by professional management, amenable to both public institutions and private corporations?

Eventually, with applied labor and efforts of newly released ex-offenders, startup costs can be repaid, reimbursing taxpayers in the process.

The result can be threefold: Recidivism reduced, prison growth stopped, even reversed, and millions restored as functioning citizens of society.

James Cook

Schaumburg