This KING-5 story is about a mom of four boys, Lisa Savard, who works as a waitress.
What’s different about her is she’s one of about 300 state prisoners doing their last year of time outside the bars of a prison, under a program for offenders who are parents that’s seeing a 95 percent success rate.
Only 5 percent of these prisoners have re-offended versus the statewide average of a 29 percent chance of committing another crime within three years of release and going back to prison.
The moms and dads in this program must get drug tested, check in with a community corrections officer every week and be tracked with an ankle bracelet. If they make any mistakes or violations, they go back to prison.
According to the KING 5 story, the program is only offered to parents who aren’t serving time for violent crimes or sex crimes.
Overall, Washington state is benefiting from a long-term trend of making sure once prisoners have served their time, most never come back. Years ago, state lawmakers made the switch to evidence-based programs, giving the Washington Institute for Public Policy the job at looking at every program and seeing what works and what doesn’t.
Here’s a good look at the trends in Washington from 1990 to 2006 and how the state tries to handle different types of offenders:
