Ex-cons seldom as lucky as Vick

By Mark L. Earley

After serving 18 months in prison, former Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has returned to the NFL, despite some early public backlash and more that likely will follow.

Ex-prisoner Vick, who signed with the Philadelphia Eagles last week, was in a far better position than nearly all the other estimated 700,000 prisoners who will be released this year.

For one thing, Vick possesses a very rare and, thus, very marketable set of skills. At any given moment, only 32 men are good enough to start at quarterback in the NFL. Add Vick’s previous success and it’s not difficult to share his agent’s assessment that his signing was a matter of “when” and not “if.”

What’s more, although many people don’t want to forgive Vick for his involvement in a dog-fighting ring, plenty of fans want to see him play again. As Falcons fans know, he was one of the most exciting players in the NFL.

It isn’t only fans: Former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, one of the most-respected men in football, has taken a personal interest in Vick’s rehabilitation and is vouching for him. Dungy says that he “firmly believes” that Vick “deserves a second chance in life.”

Writing in Sports Illustrated, Dungy told readers that Vick’s “future, just like those of thousands of other inmates around the country, is worth saving.”

Michael Vick has gotten his second chance. Sadly, the vast majority of other ex-prisoners will not. Although Americans are usually ready to forgive the transgressions of celebrities, they can be downright vindictive when it comes to ordinary offenders.

If “vindictive” sounds too strong, ask other ex-offenders in the City of Brotherly Love. Two years ago, Philadelphia created a program that would give employers a $10,000-a-year tax credit for every ex-offender they hired. Yet, in the first year of the program’s existence, not a single employer applied for the credit. Why? In large part because they feared the consequences of being publicly identified as hiring ex-offenders.

The recession isn’t helping matters. Even in good economic times, ex-offenders often have trouble finding work after their release from prison: In some communities 75 percent of ex-offenders remain unemployed a year after their release.

It’s in everyone’s interest to fix this, because fixing it promotes public safety. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that more than half the men released from prison are back behind bars within three years for either violating the terms of their release or committing new crimes (and thus harming more innocent victims).

That’s why this coming November at the Out4Life Re-Entry Conference, representatives of Prison Fellowship, the Georgia Department of Corrections and the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles will meet with community organizations and churches from across the state to find ways to work together to help ex-offenders reintegrate into society.

Helping Ex-offenders find stable employment can make a big difference: ex-offenders obviously need a way to support themselves and their families. Work also helps former inmates become law-abiding citizens. This in turn promotes public safety, saves taxpayers money and reduces the number of victims.

That makes helping these men and women the right and smart thing to do, even if they can’t throw a tight spiral.

Mark Earley, a former GOP attorney general of Virginia, is the president and CEO of Prison Fellowship, the world’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families.