Karim Mathis of Trenton spent eight years in prison for a drug conviction.
“Coming home to little or no resources is extremely difficult. My family was there but they’re only there with a limited capability,” said Mathis.
Mathis says breakthroughs for his re-entry came when people began to trust him. He prepared his mind for release on his way in to Tully House in Newark.
“It clicked the day walking in to their classification system. You’re gathered around 15 or 20 different males and you’re pretty much stripped of everything. At that moment, you say ‘this is not the life I want to live,'” Mathis said.
Behind bars, Mathis thought of and after release created the app SLAP – Sending Love And Pictures. Write a note, snap a shot and send it to inmates.
He said he came up with the idea “hearing stories of gentlemen [he] was incarcerated with that they hadn’t received a letter or pictures because people are just too busy with life.”
Mathis shared his story with the New Jersey Reentry Coalition conference. The theme: Overcoming barriers to prisoner re-entry. “No one agency will be able to tackle these challenges alone,” said Marcus Hicks, acting commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Corrections.
The New Jersey Department of Corrections and the private-nonprofit sector say their partnership has driven New Jersey to the forefront of reentry success in the nation. “It’s an evolving body of work but I think New Jersey is doing a very good job,” said Hicks.
Hicks says New Jersey releases ten-thousand inmates a year, more and more of them after they’ve received drug treatment and/or earned college-level educations behind bars. “The philosophy is that we want to make sure that the individuals that come into our custody and in a better place when they leave than when we received them,” said Hicks.
Volunteers of America is one of the state’s biggest partners – with programs helping ex-offenders get a driver’s license, housing, a job and other necessities, programs to reduce mass incarceration by helping ex-offenders avoid breaking the law again or violating parole. One speaker said in the late 1990s, parole violators made up 40 percent of the state prison population.
“History has proven if we don’t manage the transition home, you’re more likely to go back to prison,” said Pat McKernan, chief operating officer of Volunteers of America.
VOA credits many lawmakers with ‘getting it’ on the need for legislative support for re-entry programs but if the VOA had a wish list, what would be at the top?
“It’s time now for legislators and policy makers to think broadly,” McKernan said. “We have built over the last 25 years an enormous infrastructure of reentry programs both residential and nonresidential. Who else should we be serving in those programs.”
Mathis says he has several motivations – family, two jobs, his budding business, and more – to stay on the right track. He says those leaving prison need housing and someone to give them a chance. But the number one attribute to successful reentry is a different mindset.
“Because without your mind, none of that is develop-able. If your mind doesn’t change, nothing else is going to change around you,” Mathis said.
