The best way to stop crime is to prevent it altogether.
At the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, we are working every day to do just that. Our agency’s Perry County PREP Center provides tools and opportunities to help Alabamians coming out of prison stay out of prison and live productive, law-abiding lives.
The PREP Center works in tandem with the Bureau’s network of Day Reporting Centers. All of our facilities offer programs that focus on treatment to address substance use and mental health needs while also offering education, skills training and workforce development. Our 90-day program at the PREP Center is voluntary, but it has proven to be essential to post-prison success by giving participants a gradual step toward reentry that sets goals and guardrails to better acclimate these men to the real world.
In only a few weeks, this program impacting the peace and prosperity of communities throughout our state will see a significant milestone as the total number of PREP Center graduates surpasses the 400 mark. The Bureau will join our partners, advocates and legislative leaders — as well as class participants, their families and all who have championed our mission to create a stronger, safer state – for a commencement ceremony on October 3 to celebrate this success. That same week, we’ll turn the page and kick off the next cohort that will likely bring our total graduate count to 500.
Despite PREP’s ever-growing alumni base, the program still boasts a best-in-class ZERO PERCENT recidivism rate. That means none of these men have returned to prison. Instead, they are filling good-paying, hard-to-hire jobs throughout the state and shoring
up Alabama’s workforce participation rate.
This success not only fulfills the Bureau’s paramount duty of public safety by lowering crime, but it bolsters the state’s economy by bringing new, highly-skilled individuals into the workforce. The vision of PREP is to ensure those who go through the program possess the skills and resources needed to succeed in life after prison. We have only been able to achieve that goal through our partnerships with GEO Group, Alabama Power Company, state workforce agencies, the Alabama Department of Mental Health, the Alabama Community College System, Ingram State Technical College and many others.
Of course, it’s a win-win for our partners, too. Classes receive training and certification in job-ready skills like forklift operation, electrical technology and line installation, utility tree line trimming, OSHA 10 safety, transfer VR, commercial truck driving and machinery operation for skid steers, forklifts and excavators while industry and private sector partners have a group of workers ready and willing to fill critical roles. More often than not, we hear feedback that our PREP graduates have proven to be more reliable and more skilled than many of their peers.
Alabama citizens deserve a government steeped in solutions that are efficient, effective and yield results. The PREP Center and the Bureau’s reentry strategy allow us to not only be good stewards of taxpayer dollars but to deliver results that help build a stronger, safer state. Our programs help these men stand on their own feet, take care of their families, contribute to their communities and live meaningful lives after prison. We look forward to reporting back more success soon.
Ward is the director of the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles and a former state lawmaker.