New program to help female ex-cons

The state parole board yesterday announced the launch of a program aimed at helping female ex-convicts in Camden County become successful and self-sufficient members of society.

The New Jersey Women's Reentry and Employment Partnership will provide women in Camden and Mercer Counties with job training, employment services, education, and assistance with finding housing and medical care.

The partnership is made up of the parole board and the state Department of Community Affairs' Division on Women. The program is an expansion of a similar initiative in Essex County.

That program, the Female Offender Reentry Group Effort (FORGE), began in 2004 in Newark as the state's first initiative targeting the needs of female offenders. Officials hope that offering more support to women leaving prison will make it less likely that they will return to crime.

"Women are the fastest-growing population in America's prisons, and they face unique barriers when they return to society," parole board chairman Yolette Ross said yesterday at a news conference in the Statehouse in Trenton. "These programs provide a clear benefit for public safety."

The program, funded by the nonprofit Newark-based Nicholson Foundation, will serve an estimated 140 parolees in Camden County each year, and 90 in Mercer. Women who are not on parole or on probation will be eligible for help as well. Officials said it would cost $100,000 to expand the Essex program into Camden and Mercer Counties.

In Newark, the program served nearly 600 ex-convicts last year. Hundreds more women without criminal records got help with basic needs such as getting copies of birth certificates or help with job services.

The parole board plans to enroll women from Camden and Mercer Counties in the program immediately, officials said yesterday.