How To Keep Ex-Cons At Home

In Baltimore, Some Ex-Cons Get Some Extra Help

(CBS)  On June 24, 2003, Terrance English walked out of prison and took exactly 11 steps in freedom before he was in the arms of one of his counselors.

One of the first things that trips up many ex-cons is simply where to stay. Drug offenders aren’t allowed to live in most public housing, and many can’t afford a place of their own.

Says Jackie Cornish, who gives many of the ex-cons a place to stay, "All these barriers are being put in these people's way, and yet, at the same time, we're saying to them: 'Make it. Huh. Go ahead, I expect you to make it.' It's like you're, you're telling them to run a race on one leg."

Cornish runs a non-profit group that builds housing. Cornish is at the heart of the re-entry partnership, supplying the ex-cons with shelter, food and clothes for three months. It’s free but not easy.

"These guys don't come in here and we just do everything for 'em, make their beds, get 'em up and fed," she explains. "They have to have jobs. They better get a job, and if they're not working within a certain period a time… 'What's the reason why you're not working? Are you on drugs? Then you're in counseling. You have to be doing something that is showing us, as well as yourself, that you're trying to better yourself.' "

Darroll Cribb wanted to better himself, but the odds weren’t good three years ago when he became one of the first ex-cons to try the partnership. He’d been in and out of prison six times, stealing to buy heroin.

Says Cribb, "I didn't have no structure when I got out. I didn't have no structure at all. I didn't have no supports, and every time I came out, I would come back into the same situation."

The situation would change with the reentry partnership, even though, at first, Cribb resisted the rules.

"When I got out, I didn't want to be confined to a house," he recalls. "I didn't want nobody telling me what to do. I'm a grown man. I don't need you telling me what to do. What I've seen, in the long run, the bigger picture was, this will help you, and this has gotten me where I am today."

Where he is, is downtown Baltimore, in a new life, with his own business: a dry-cleaning shop. He’s also studying to be a minister.

Cribb told 60 Minutes Wednesday that the partnership put him on the road to leave a 25-year drug addiction behind.

Pelley: "How long you been clean?"

Cribb: "I've been clean seven years."

Pelley: "Seven years."

Cribb: "Seven years, going on seven years, going on seven years."

Pelley: "After 25 years of using."

Cribb: "Yeah, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. It sure is."

But if there’s going to be a miracle for Terrance English, he’s off to a bad start. Unlike Darroll Cribb, English isn’t following the program. He refused the first critical step — free housing. Instead, he’s moved in with his fiancée. And now, just a few weeks out of prison, the pressures of raising his family are crushing English.

He says, "The reality of the situation is, I thought I was going to come home, and it was going to be almost easy. This has been a real struggle, a real struggle. I haven't been able to find gainful employment to support my family as I thought I would be able to do, and it's been a real stress on me."

But believe it or not, that’s the least of his problems. He has missed two meetings with his probation officer, Lisa Nixon, and here's why:

"I drunk some beer, I smoked some coke, and I sniffed some heroin," he admits.

English has been out only six weeks. Even though he’s already relapsed, he insists he’s got it under control.

"It's behind me, and I'm moving forward," he says. "I fell down, I got up, and I'm starting to walk again."

But he tells Nixon he won’t take weekly drug tests, because he’s too busy looking for work.

"If that's gonna cause me to violate whatever conditions that's there, then so be it," English says. "But I'm gonna try to protect my family, plain and simple. That's the way I see it."

Nixon can send him right back to prison.

She tells English, "I'm telling you, you know, the attitude you got now, it's not looking good. You need to really sit down and rethink what you're doing, because you're heading to go right back to prison, and that's not solving any of your problems."

Any other ex-con might be facing Nixon alone, but because of the reentry partnership, English’s counselor, Thompson, is there, and he tries to talk some sense into English before he gets himself handcuffed again: "I think that your whole goals, all the goals and all the dreams and all the things that you say you wanna do, don't stand a chance if you don't deal with this disease of addiction you have, man."