LEGAL AID WINS NATIONAL FELLOWSHIP TO WORK WITH EX-OFFENDERS

Western Michigan Legal Services (Legal Aid) is delighted to announce that staff attorney Miriam Aukerman has won a two-year Soros Justice Fellowship to work with ex-offenders. The Soros Justice Fellowships are awarded by the Open Society Institute, a private foundation, and are designed to support individuals working to restore fairness to the U.S. criminal justice system. Twenty-two fellowships were awarded across the country. Ms. Aukerman will start a new project at Legal Aid to assist former offenders in reintegrating into community life.

Since 1975, Michigan=s prison population has grown at 38 times the rate of the general population. AWhat people often forget,@ says Ms. Aukerman Ais that almost everyone who goes in, eventually comes out. @ In Michigan, almost 1000 prisoners are released into the community each month. AWhen former offenders are released,@ says Ms. Aukerman, Athey usually face the same problems that landed them in prison in the first place, like poor job skills and drug or alcohol addiction. Add to that the stigma of a criminal conviction and legal barriers to driving, employment, housing, and family reunification, and it =s no wonder that almost two-thirds of former prisoners are rearrested within three years.@ The goal of Ms. Aukerman=s project is to give former offenders the tools to become law-abiding, productive citizens by removing the obstacles to success. AOne example,@ says Ms. Aukerman, Ais that when offenders get out of prison, they aren =t given any identification. It =s a crazy policy from a public safety standpoint, since we don =t want to make the police guess who these guys are. But it is also crazy from the perspective of encouraging ex-offenders to reestablish themselves in the community. Without ID you can =t get a job, you can=t get an apartment, and you can=t get a driver=s license. You can =t even get food stamps to tide you over until you do get a job. How is a person supposed to live?@ If the goal is to keep ex-offenders from turning back to crime, we have to make it possible for ex-offenders to succeed, argues Ms. Aukerman. AThe simple things B like an ID, or job, or a place to live B can make all the difference in whether an ex-offender turns his life around. That=s what this project is all about.@

Legal Aid=s director, Michael Chielens, says that the project complements Legal Aid =s long-standing mission of providing basic civil legal services to low-income people. ACriminal justice isn=t just about whether a person goes to prison; it= s also about what happens to that person when he gets out. Just like we need prosecutors and defense attorneys at the front end of the criminal justice system, we need civil legal aid lawyers at the back end. There =s been a tremendous unmet need. The Soros grant has finally given us the resources to focus on a problem that has been there all along, @ says Mr. Chielens.

Ms. Aukerman hopes to collaborate with local community groups and the criminal defense bar to get the word out to ex-offenders that free legal assistance is available. Over the next two years she will develop self-help legal materials, serve as a resource to other attorneys, and represent ex-offenders in a variety of civil legal matters. The project will start in mid-April.