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Jobs and Hope is a collaborative of government agencies and community service organizations in West Virginia that helps individuals recently released from prison to find necessities like clothes, housing and jobs in the towns they move to. Other issues too can seem insurmountable in such a situation -- the need for job training, signing up for food stamps or Medicaid or accessing transportation to get to their jobs or parole meetings. For convicted criminals, these situations can often become the tipping point for recidivism. “Many become so frustrated that they’re ready to commit another crime just to go back to jail and have a place to stay,” says Jeremiah Nelson, reentry council coordinator with an organization based in Princeton, W.V. The community-based reentry councils are supported by organizations such as the Council of Churches. Along with support for essentials like housing and jobs, the councils also train people with life skills such as decision-making, a skill actually purged out of people in prison. Though a comprehensive bill to overhaul the state’s criminal codes has been put on the back burner for now due to the complexity of the issues to be addressed, these reentry councils are serving the important function of providing hope and an opportunity for change to the people who need it most.
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