Thanks to a successful ex-felon reintegration program run by a former enforcer to West Las Vegas' biggest drug kingpins, Las Vegas was selected as one of seven cities that will work with the National League of Cities' Institute for Youth, Education, and Families, the National Transitional Jobs Network, the Transitional Work Corporation and the Center for Employment Opportunities on improving long-term employment opportunities for ex-offenders and others.
Officials in the city's EVOLVE—Educational and Vocational Opportunities Leading to Valuable Experience—program will receive 18 months of technical assistance, access to national experts and opportunities to work with other cities and local community partners.
In its two years, EVOLVE has become a model program: 1,929 ex-felons have used its resources; of the 265 clients who have undergone intensive programming, approximately 185 now have jobs paying more than $11 an hour; its recidivism rate is 10 percent, compared with a national average between 66 percent and 80 percent.
Much of EVOLVE's success has been credited to Shawn Smith, who served eight years of a 17-year bid for weapons and conspiracy to distribute drugs, and now helps run the program for the city and various nonprofits.
"It's been an uphill battle, but this is validation of the work we do," Smith says.
The third prong in the Study Committee on Correction's 2001 report to Gov. Kenny Guinn noted that the "risk to public safety is greater and high recidivism results when offenders are released from prison without reentry planning, transitional services and/or community support." Several thousand inmates are paroled each year in Nevada; in 2001, 39 percent of the 4,192 parolees left prison without a community supervision or support services.
EVOLVE operates on the premise that ex-felons aren't incorrigible and given the right tools—upwards of 250 clients receive intense educational training that includes everything from learning Microsoft Office to job preparedness—they can successful return to society.
State prison officials note that 60 percent of Nevada's 10,000-plus inmates are serving time for nonviolent offenses. Take away services like the federally funded EVOLVE program, Smith says, and you might as well keep prison doors open.
"When you're dealing with a hard-to-serve population, it's hard to be as successful as we have been," Smith says. "That success is a result of the synergistic effect of the employees we have and all the resources available in the community."