CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Willette Benford, Chicago’s Director of Re-Entry, knows firsthand the challenges that residents who have been incarcerated face when they return to society.
She spent a considerable amount of time behind bars, and when she came home, her prison record proved to be a roadblock to finding housing or getting a job. Benford said people returning from the Department of Corrections need help in getting back on their feet and becoming productive citizens.
“There are permanent punishments,” she said. “Having a conviction, a prior conviction, it will hinder you from getting employment and also being able to provide for your family.”
In her current role, Benford said she now helps coordinate the services and policies meant to assist formerly incarcerated people. The work, she said, is needed.
“Let’s just go back a bit to a job—a good job—where I don’t wake up bill insecure, rent insecure, food insecure, [and] that I’m able to pay my rent,” she said. “Individuals coming home from incarceration want the same thing that you want. [They] want to rebuild their lives, they’ve paid their debt to society, and why wouldn’t we?”
Benford said she’s helped shepherd development of new City hiring policies, which remove some of the speed bumps en route to municipal employment.
The director added, though, that there may be a price to be paid when people who have been incarcerated can’t get the help they need.
“When someone can’t get a job to provide for themselves or their families, you put them in a desperate situation,” she said. “And when people are in a desperate situation, we criminalize them for surviving.”
Helping people who’ve been incarcerated rebuild their lives is the subject on WBBM’s “At Issue” program. Hear the full interview at 9:30 p.m. Sunday.
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