Reentry

Research suggests access to public health insurance can help curb recidivism. Reentry organizations in Missouri are working to enroll people in Medicaid after they leave prison to keep them from coming back.

Growing up, Wesley Dirmeyer read more than a lot of his friends, but he started living and breathing books once he went to prison. In the five and a half years he was incarcerated at Lake Erie Correctional Institution, he estimates he read at least 1,000 books — many of them checked out of the prison library, where he also worked. Reading, in turn, pushed him toward writing.

Nearly 1 million residents of the state have felony convictions. For our Justice Matters series, we speak with some of them who have been living with the consequences, while we identify some calls for change.

For Da'Jon Carouthers, the biggest contrast between free life and incarcerated life is the noise. "It's never really quiet," Carouthers said. "Even at night when you're sleeping, you've got two people to your right, two people to your left — you have no space." He began writing poetry and fiction as a way of creating that space for himself.

Before Jonathan Young began writing poetry through the ID13 Prison Literacy Project, he spent a long time trying to "fit in" with others around him.

This story is part of a series called Poetic Reentry, featuring the voices of formerly incarcerated men reading poetry they wrote in prison and talking about their lives since release. Please visit the main page for the series at http://www.ideastream.org/poeticreentry. Cardell Belfoure had been writing poetry for several years before joining the ID13 Prison Literacy Project while incarcerated at Grafton Correctional Institution in Grafton, Ohio.

A Montgomery County program aimed at helping people returning from prison reintegrate into society and find steady employment is showing promise. That was…