Chicago ex-felon moms lobby for alternative sentencing

When Glynis Brown decided that her sixth time in prison would be her last, she never dreamed that her path to recovery would lead to a state senator's office in Springfield.

Brown was among a dozen advocates and formerly incarcerated mothers who made the four-hour drive from Chicago this week to lobby for funding to create a residential treatment center for convicted mothers, instead of sending them to prison and separating them from their children.

"I always hear my grandmother say: when you know better, you'll do better," Brown told one legislator. "They [the women] need to know that there's a better way of living, that somebody cares."

Passed in 2002 but never funded, the one-year pilot program would initially serve 48 women convicted of non-violent felonies, such as drug possession, prostitution and retail theft, in Cook County, said Daria Mueller, policy specialist for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, a supporter of the bill.

"We're starting out small but once we prove this is effective, then we can duplicate this," she explained. "This can be replicated all over the state once we show that this works."

Splitting into two groups, the women visited legislators with policy specialists from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless to lobby for $1.2 million to launch the program.

"I'm so glad they do come because they put a face on the issue and they're passionate about it," said Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood), lead sponsor of the appropriations bill. "They can articulate it much better than I can. They've lived it, they feel it."

As the women waited in the humid, bustling corridor outside the House of Representatives gallery, Brown scanned the ornate domed ceiling, a smile on her upturned face.

"The first time I came [to Springfield], I was like a kid in a candy store," she said, pausing as if to breathe it all in. "I was like, wow, I can actually walk in, knock on that door and ask to speak to that senator."

Over the course of her 20-year addiction to heroin and cocaine, Brown estimates she spent about nine years in prison cells for drug-related offenses. Released in February after serving two and a half years in Lincoln Correctional Center, she now lives at Grace House, which provides transitional housing and services to female ex-offenders re-entering society.

"We have women who truly, genuinely want to change-women like ourselves. I wish we had had a program like this," she told Sen. Linda Holmes (D-Plainfield).

A silent observer in the corridors, Brown did not hesitate in front of legislators. Her tone remained confident and steady even as emotion accelerated the pace of her words.

"A lot of women feel hopeless," Brown told Sen. Michael Noland (D-Elgin), a supporter of the bill. "We're not asking anybody to carry us over the bridge. We're just asking you to give us a little push."

"A lot of people don't want to hire ex-felons," she explained. "You say, well, we want you to be a productive member of society but when we come out and we try to do better, nobody wants to help us."

The Residential Treatment and Transition Center would offer first-time, non-violent female offenders intensive drug treatment, job training and subsidized apartments with their children instead of a prison sentence, Mueller said.

"These are the essential tools that we need to be productive members of society, to stop the vicious cycle of reentering into the penal institutions," said Caprice Morales, a Grace-House resident who has been incarcerated four times for drug-related offenses.

The program would save the state money, reunite families and reduce female recidivism, which is currently at a rate of 56 percent in Illinois, advocates say. Family unity models have had recidivism rates of zero to 17 percent, and a transitional job-training model for ex-convicts, like what would be used in the pilot, has had a recidivism rate of seven percent, Mueller told legislators.

Funding for the residential treatment center has been included in the House budget currently before the Senate, said Yarbrough, who remains optimistic about its prospects.

On the road back to Chicago, the van buzzes with talking and laughter. Photos of children and grandchildren circulated as conversation migrated from the day's events to the R. Kelly trial and how government cheese made the best sandwiches in the projects.

Though long, the day has been empowering, the women say.

"I feel like I make a difference," Brown said of her trips to Springfield. "Even if nothing comes of it, my voice has been heard and hopefully it will stick in somebody's mind."