On Kansas prison tour, Brownback praises inmate support initiatives

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback this week visited some of the state’s prisons to greet staff, talk with inmates and tout programs he says are reducing recidivism.

At a news conference Wednesday morning at El Dorado Correctional Facility, the governor praised a handful of offender support initiatives, including Mentoring for Success, which pairs volunteer mentors with inmates who need help reintegrating into society after their release.

To date, the program has matched more than 6,400 inmates with mentors. It started in 2011.

“We’re got a great first-year recidivism rate reduction,” Brownback said, noting that inmates who go through the mentoring program have an 8.7 percent re-offense rate, compared with 20 percent for other offenders.

Another program, Thinking for a Change, is also prompting a drop recidivism rates, he said.

“We’ve seen a reduction in inmate recidivism of people that have gone through that, from 35 percent to 19 percent,” Brownback said. Later, he said: “There’s a lot of talk about redoing the prison system in the country. I think it’s a good discussion for the country to have, and Kansas has already done a lot of it.”

The governor’s stop in El Dorado was part of a two-day tour of Kansas corrections facilities. He also visited some of Johnson County’s adult residential centers Tuesday, and the prison in Ellsworth on Wednesday afternoon.

Brownback’s El Dorado visit also included a walk-though of the prison’s Spiritual Life Center, a 11,500-square-foot interfaith facility built using mostly inmate labor, and a private meeting with several prison staff members.

Opened in 2010, the Spiritual Life Center houses a large, open chapel space, a multipurpose room, five classrooms, a religious library, a conference room and chaplain offices, as well as outdoor worship areas. Warden James Heimgartner told Brownback that 18 different religions are represented in El Dorado’s current prison population, although more faiths are recognized.

The El Dorado prison, an all-male facility, is one of eight state correctional facilities for adults in Kansas. It houses about 1,500 inmates, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections’ latest population report.

Brownback will follow up his prison visits with a news conference at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at his ceremonial office in Topeka. There he will discuss Mentoring for Success, including the juvenile branch of the program, which is based on the adult initiative.

Outgoing Kansas Department of Corrections Secretary Ray Roberts, who accompanied the governor on the tours, on Wednesday called Brownback “a friend to corrections.”

“The governor has done us a huge favor by starting … a Mentoring for Success program,” Roberts said during the news conference.

The volunteers have helped inmates “get jobs and a place to live and help to adjust to the community. And that is something that is having a big impact on recidivism, and I think that we’re going to see a positive impact for years to come.”

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 4:18 PM with the headline "On Kansas prison tour, Brownback praises inmate support initiatives."