Published June 10, 2014
BY JANINE ANDERSON
janderson@kenoshanews.com
The public defender’s office represents many of the people living on low incomes who are charged with crimes in Kenosha County. They look at someone’s income and assets, family size and the type of case to determine whether the office can accept a client.
“Who we deal with are clientele who don’t have a lot of money,” said Chuck Bennett, local area manager for the Kenosha County public defender’s office.
Often, their clients have never had money. Being raised in poverty is linked with lower education levels and fewer opportunities, Bennett said.
“It’s a very difficult kind of situation,” he said. “We see mothers that have children that are trying to raise them by themselves. We see people that are homeless, people that have mental health issues.”
Sometimes, someone’s lack of income is directly tied to their crimes.
“We certainly see crimes where people are stealing to survive or to feed children, but we’ve seen the other situation, too,” Bennett said. “Where people get caught up in drug and alcohol addiction and people who’ve never been in trouble their entire lives and start stealing to support a habit. It’s a vicious circle. It’s very hard to get out of.”
Programs like the drug treatment court and behavioral mental health court help with that. They aim to address problems that are helping keep people in the criminal justice system.
Not many people line up to help felons coming out of prison.
Helping reintegrate
Reintegrating into the community isn’t easy for many people transitioning from incarceration to supervised release. They often come out of prison with few resources, little education or experience, and with contacts from the life that got them in trouble in the first place.
George Hockney, ministry director at Kenosha’s New Song Ministries, is trying to change that and offer them some support. He and his wife, Judy, have worked with the ministry for seven years.
“I always wanted to do something helping people,” Judy Hockney said. “I would have never thought I’d be driving around our clients.”
Transportation is a major challenge. The Hockneys and others who work with the ministry help make sure they get where they need to go, and get home on time.
“A lot of them getting out can’t drive,” Judy Hockney said.
One client, she said, had to get up at 4 a.m. so he could walk to his job on time. New Song Ministries gave him a bicycle, and it’s cut his commute time considerably.
The ministry buys used bikes, and parts needed to fix them. One of their clients performs the maintenance work.
They provide a bridge, helping connect their clients with the resources and services available, like signing up for food stamps, applying with temp agencies, searching for jobs, getting a bus pass. With a weekly church service, fellowship and Bible study, they also help connect these men with each other.
“It’s amazing to see them working together,” Judy Hockney said. “They’ll say, ‘I hear this temp agency is hiring,’ or tell someone how to get government phones.”
‘Nothing out here for guys like us’
Ismael Rivera is a New Song client. He was released from prison in July 2013, after serving two and a half years for burglary. He has been in prison more often than not over the past 30 years.
“There’s nothing out here for guys like us,” Rivera said. “The places don’t exist. Programs are so depleted. There’s nothing out there saying ‘This is for the guys getting out of prison.’”
Then he found New Song, which is building ties between people.
“It’s a close-knit family of felons trying to help each other,” Rivera said. “It’s my first time being around a close-knit family where I feel I belong. You can call anybody and say this is what I’m going through. They ask, ‘Where you at? You need something?’ They don’t fail us. They’re like our parents.”
Rivera, like many New Song clients, has been trying to find a job since he got out of prison. Other than a few days’ work for a temp agency, he’s had nothing.
Once someone has a criminal conviction, Bennett said, it becomes much more difficult to get a job and to stay out of poverty.
“Imagine someone who comes from a life of poverty and then gets a criminal conviction,” Bennett said.
This might be someone who didn’t finish their education, and now has a record.
“I don’t think people in general realize how difficult it is to get employment if you have any kind of a criminal conviction,” Bennett said. “It is so easy now for people, employers, to look at CCAP (Wisconsin Circuit Court Access Program) and check criminal records.”
Most people understand that having a record makes it more difficult, Bennett said.
“But unless you’ve actually been convicted or have a family member that’s been convicted, I’m not sure you understand all the ramifications that go along with that,” Bennett said. “It’s so easy for anybody to look up and see that you have a conviction and some people, rightly or wrongly, will judge you forever on that one conviction.”
“When a person gets sentenced you can see, well, a judge put them in prison or put them in jail, or there was a probation period and they were monitored, but the other punishment is that they have this conviction on their record for the rest of their life. It’s not something that a lot of times goes away. It’s there forever, and it’s very hard to overcome.”
New Song Prison Ministries 