Program helping give parolees second chance

Employers need skilled workers. Ex-offenders need steady jobs.

To bring the two groups together, the Louisiana Department of Labor has initiated J-CORE (Judicial-Core Opportunity Refer-ral to Employment).

J-CORE provides career counseling and job placement services to non-violent and non-sex offenders to secure employment as soon as possible after release.

“Gainful employment that pays a living wage is a key component in curtailing the revolving door of recidivism,” Whalen Gibbs, assistant secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, wrote in a statement.

Operated through the Business and Career Solutions Centers (formerly known as One-Stops), J-CORE is a referral process that partners with local probation and parole offices.

A parole office refers an ex-offender who is looking for work, a better-paying job or career development opportunities. Case managers at the centers try to match the person’s work skills to an employer willing to hire ex-offenders.

“We have teams of people going out and talking to employers about what their needs are,” said Girard Melancon, special assistant for the Office of Workforce Development.

Businesses that hire ex-offenders may also receive special incentives, usually tax credits.

The types of jobs available to ex-offenders depend on their work skills and the region where they are seeking employment, Melancon said.

So far, 381 ex-offenders from the Tri-parish area have participated in the program since its inception in July 2007.

According to Melancon, the Houma-Thibodaux area is a “very vibrant port shipping and advance manufacturing area” for those with welding and pipefitting expertise.

“Construction has been good across the board; offshore has been a good placement,” he added. “Some people have gotten involved in a variety of training programs at the community college (L.E. Fletcher) and other providers.”

There are companies that have good-paying blue-collar jobs available, but convincing employers to fill them with ex-offenders has been a challenge, Melancon said.

But Department of Labor Secretary Tim Barfield and Department of Corrections Secretary James M. LeBlanc hope to convince employers to be open-minded as they travel the state in the coming weeks touting the benefits of the program.

“They will have some employers’ brunches and talk about what it means to hire an ex-offender,” Melancon explained. “They’ll also have employers to highlight – like from advance manufacturing, shipbuilding, and other trades – to talk about their success working with this population.”

J-CORE is not an extension of the work-release program. Although both attempt to help prisoners re-enter society, inmates on work release are serving out their sentences and go back to a minimum-security jail every night.

“We place [work-release participants] in jobs at whatever companies we have contracts with to hire our inmates,” said Captain Milfred Zeringue, who runs the 174-capacity Lafourche Parish prison work-release program.

“They pay room and board and other expenses, and we manage (inmates’) money. They don’t control their money until they’re released.”

J-CORE and work release are not competing programs, Melancon emphasized. However, both programs funnel an underused resource of labor into the workforce.

“We’re dealing with 100,000 job openings, and we pretty much have about 100,000 ex-offenders, probation and people who are incarcerated in Louisiana,” Melancon said. “We are not going to get all of them, but the ones who are willing to take their time in placement seriously, we want them to have avenues to move them forward.”