Starting over on $40.

That’s not the name of some new reality television show. It is just reality for Marcus Crawford, the type of reality that a life of crime will buy you.

Crawford has spent most of the past 24 years in Kansas prisons for a string of aggravated battery and burglary convictions. But as Crawford stepped off the Greyhound bus into Lawrence last Tuesday, he vowed that his life of crime was behind him.

Crawford is starting his new life on the straight and narrow with no job and no home. All he had when he arrived in town were his clothes and the $40 officials at Lansing state prison gave him before they put him on the bus.

“That first day, it felt good, but then reality started to set in,” Crawford said.

‘Thrown out’

Crawford has been spending his nights at the Salvation Army’s homeless shelter. He eats one meal a day, either at the Salvation Army or at the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen.

During the day, he’s been looking for work. Crawford said in the week he’s been in town he’s put in nearly 50 applications – ranging from food service to industrial jobs. He has hasn’t found regular work, though a few individuals have given him handyman jobs.

He said the Kansas Department of Corrections hadn’t made his job search any easier. He said the department could have done more to help ease his re-entry into society.

“I feel like I was just thrown out to fend for myself,” Crawford said.

Crawford, 42, said he left prison with only a prison ID card, which identifies him as an inmate – not the best first impression to give when seeking a job. He has struggled to find his way to the state driver’s license office and only recently received a license after officials at the Lawrence Community Shelter gave him money to cover the application fee. Crawford spent most of his original $40 on a bicycle that cost $20 and on $12 worth of clothes.

Recently released from decades of prison, Marcus Crawford has found himself in Lawrence with no job, no place to live and few prospects. His plight is not uncommon for inmates re-entering society, corrections officials say.

Crawford has a Lawrence parole officer to whom he must regularly report. He said that though the people at the office were nice, the parole system lacked good contacts with employers willing to give ex-cons a chance.

“We’re all in the same boat,” Crawford said of other recently released inmates. “Some people have a girlfriend or a family member that can help them out, but if you don’t, it is real tough.”

So, Crawford said he “keeps his ear to the ground” in search of a job and tries to network with anybody he meets. He went to last Tuesday’s City Commission meeting to talk about the plight of the homeless and ended up finding out about the city’s process to apply for a job. At this week’s meeting, he showed up again to approach the city’s public works director about a job.

But until a job comes his way, Crawford tries to find his place among the city’s homeless, who he said are made up of three distinct groups: people who want to do better but are down on their luck; those with a mental illness or disability; and “knuckleheads who want to get money to buy drugs and alcohol.”

He knows that the difference between the first group and the last group can be razor-thin.

“I find myself during the bulk of the day doing nothing, and I’m not a nothing person,” Crawford said. “I write myself a letter every night to keep myself focused.

“I tell myself to be strong, to let things come to you, and to take it one day at a time. Things will work out. I (write the letter) so I won’t let myself get sucked into this homeless lifestyle.”

‘Fighting the fight’

Herman Leon, a retired social welfare professor at Kansas University, heard Crawford’s story at last week’s City Commission meeting. He gave Crawford a ride and $20 to pay an application fee for Crawford to get a copy of his birth certificate, which is needed to apply for a variety of government assistance.

When Marcus Crawford got out of prison recently, the state gave him 0 to start his new life.

“But what he really needs is a job,” Leon said. “I would say if Marcus is able to get a job, a remarkable thing could happen. But I think what he is facing is almost impossible odds. He needs an angel to adopt him.”

Frances Breyne, a spokeswoman with the Kansas Department of Corrections, said her agency made it a priority to work with inmates to ease them back into society. The department in fiscal year 2004 released 5,800 inmates. She said each state prison had a team of “release planners” who reviewed the histories of each individual scheduled for release.

She said the planners would work with inmates to try to arrange for them to receive help from their families or look at the inmates’ finances to determine if they have enough means to rent a place to live. Inmates also are screened for mental or physical disabilities that could qualify them to be housed in one of the state’s networks of halfway houses. But Breyne said beds in halfway houses were so limited that generally an inmate must have some type of disability to qualify.

“We have the same resources that everybody else has, but unfortunately they many times are woefully inadequate,” Breyne said. “But we fight the fight every day on a very individual basis.”

Breyne said the department didn’t have statistics on how many inmates turned to homeless shelters upon release. The situation occurred “somewhat often,” she said, though a majority of inmates were able to be placed with family members. Breyne said the department didn’t keep statistics on whether inmates who landed in homeless shelters were more likely to end up back in prison.

“But we absolutely acknowledge that it is a huge stress on an offender to be without a home and without a job,” Breyne said.

Breyne said the department was trying to address some of the concerns Crawford and other inmates have raised. For example, she said, the department has started a program to help inmates make contact with the appropriate state agencies to clean up their driving records so that receiving a driver’s license will be easier upon release.

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Jeannie Wark, Crawford’s Lawrence-based parole officer, said inmates didn’t always know what the department could do for them. She said that’s why in an ideal world, the state would have a series of transitional housing centers that would provide everything from life training skills to job assistance.

“I don’t think they are reluctant to seek our help. I don’t think they always know what type of assistance we offer,” said Wark, who said she could have helped Crawford obtain a driver’s license and birth certificate had he asked.

But the amount of assistance available to inmates is not what it used to be, said Steve Davies, a former secretary of the state’s department of corrections in the 1990s. Davies said the leadership of the Department of Corrections was strong, but it did not often receive the funding support it needed from the Legislature. He said lawmakers needed to broaden their thinking about how to deal with inmates.

“You have to remember that these people are going to be your neighbors again,” said Davies, who now is the public schools superintendent in Horton. “That’s where the people who provide the funds, that’s where their thinking stops. I would like for all of them to have these folks as neighbors.

“With the legislative branch we have right now, look at how they treat education. How do you think they are going to treat prisons?”

Breyne said that ultimately there’s only so much her department could do. She said much rested in the hands of the inmates and communities in which they lived.

“It is extremely difficult to assist returning offenders in retaining housing and employment,” Breyne said. “The elements involved in that difficulty have to do with landlords and employers not wanting to risk liability, having to do with landlord and employers being afraid for their own safety often times, having to do with landlords and employers getting outside pressure from their community or other consumers about giving returning offenders a second chance or a break.

“We can’t do everything. We really do need the help of the community. If just one person chooses to help, it really can change someone’s world.”

‘A little backyard’

Crawford has four battery convictions, including one against a Wichita police officer and two against correctional officers in Reno County. He also has a conviction for aggravated burglary.

He first entered the prison system in 1981 but has been released on parole or as part of a supervised program on at least three occasions. Each time, though, he’s broken the rules and been sent back to prison.

That’s what happened in April. Crawford had been released on parole in October after serving 14 consecutive years in prison. Though he grew up in Wichita, he landed in Lawrence because he had heard “it was a big small town that was on the move,” and it had good public transportation.

While in Lawrence, he met a woman with whom he thought he was going to start a new life. Through her, he had a place to stay and had found a job with a telemarketing company, soliciting donations for – of all groups – the Missouri State Troopers Assn.

The new relationship, though, didn’t work out. She was using illegal drugs, he said.

“I had tried to get her to stop using drugs,” Crawford said. “I wasn’t using them. I told her that if she wouldn’t stop, I would start using them. I tried to use reverse psychology. It backfired.”

The drugs showed up in a urine test he was required to take by his parole officer. He was sent back to prison for 90 days. That was in April. That sentence ended last week.

Now, Crawford said he and the woman have parted ways.

“It is cheaper for me to stay away from her,” he said.

These days Crawford said he was looking forward – not back – though he admits the past always follows him. He said he often didn’t fully disclose his criminal history on application forms and said that he usually used an address of a Lawrence residence where he previously lived. He said a Salvation Army address often was a quick way for a job application to end up in the trash.

But he said he knew that he also owed it to anybody who took a chance on him to fully disclose his history.

“People should know where I came from to know where I’m headed,” Crawford said. “I’m headed to be a productive citizen. Once upon a time, I wasn’t headed that way. But I know now that this isn’t the life I want for myself.

“I want my own house. Want my own little backyard to go into. I would like to sit under a gazebo that I built on a warm summer’s night.”