From dentures to job training, ex-prisoners get help to thrive

The defining years of Richard Miles’ life weren’t the 15 he spent wrongfully incarcerated for murder. They haven’t been the 11 years since his exoneration, either. What has defined his lifework has been the 30 months between the two. 

It’s that period, when he was just another guy who had served time struggling to rebuild his life, that inspired him to help found Miles of Freedom. He could have focused his efforts on other wrongful convictions, as other exonerees have done. His home state of Texas, after all, has more exonerations than almost any other. But while he knows better than anyone the deep injustice of a wrongful conviction, he also knows better than most the broad injustice felt by the thousands of people who are released from America’s prisons each day.

“We started Miles of Freedom not because I was innocent, but because I was in prison,” he says. “I felt that there was a larger problem than the social injustice of wrongful conviction. Innocent or guilty, coming home, we need help.”

In Texas on an average day, north of 1,600 people come home from prison. The state gives them a set of clothes, $50, and a bus voucher. Mr. Miles knows that’s not enough to rebuild a life. 

What formerly incarcerated people need as much as anything is a stable job, and that’s what Miles of Freedom works to provide in Dallas.

The organization offers jobs, job training, and resources. Mr. Miles estimates that he and his 13 full-time employees have helped around 2,600 men and women. They offer jobs through the group’s lawn service and food through its food pantry. They helped one man get a drive shaft so he could fix his car. They got another man free dentures.

“For someone who’s been wronged by the system, beat up by the system, to want to give back just shows what kind of man he is,” says Jay Dan Gumm, a formerly incarcerated man who founded Forgiven Felons.

The justice system “seems to not want to make it easy. They actually make it harder on us,” he adds. “It’s about all of us collaborating to fill in the gaps.”

Help for those with no one

Corina Bernal went decades without help.

When she first went to prison, she was a pregnant teenager. She gave birth to her second daughter while incarcerated. Over the next 30 years, she cycled in and out of prison. She struggled to hold down jobs. With no family to turn to, when she got in a tough spot she would start selling drugs. “It’s hard for me to shake it off and get out,” says Ms. Bernal. 

“I’m not going to be broke. I’m not,” she adds. “It shouldn’t affect me that much, but it really does because I don’t have family.”

Near the end of her most recent sentence, she heard from another imprisoned person about Miles of Freedom. About six months later, on a rainy November morning, she’s celebrating getting a driver’s license. She’s been working part time at the lawn service, but now that the crucial hurdle of getting an ID has been overcome, she’s eyeing the future. Her next goal is to open a bank account, and then get a permanent job at Miles of Freedom. Long-term, she wants to work as a truck driver.

“Just having a support system, that’s [what is] good with Miles of Freedom,” she says. “Also, what’s helpful is the people that you work around are very positive people.”

Indeed, as necessary as it is to teach formerly incarcerated people how to put together a résumé and make a budget, the most important thing Miles of Freedom provides is a community.

Mr. Miles knows he was more blessed than most in the support he got returning home after prison. But because he had still been convicted of a crime, he struggled to find housing and a job. A minister at his church found him work at a hotel, and a childhood friend co-signed on an apartment.

“Reentry, bottom line, is about building relationships,” says Mr. Miles. 

But that can be difficult for someone coming out of prison. In prison “you become a recluse,” he says. You learn to never reveal much of what you’re thinking or feeling in case it sparks an altercation. 

“The hardest part of my transition was talking about the things that I was going through, talking about how lost I was, talking about how hurt I was,” he adds.

“We have people that came here [who’ve] done 36, 37 years, and when they come [in], the relationship that they’re met with knocks them off guard,” he continues. “When they feel that, not having a place to stay, not having a job is bearable.”

A patched-together system

About 30% of U.S. nonprofits fold within 10 years. Celebrating its 11th anniversary, Miles of Freedom has the traits of a group that’s in this for the long haul. 

The organization has multiple offices and over a dozen permanent employees managing casework. No one who makes an appointment is turned away. Those who have issues the nonprofit isn’t equipped for – substance abuse, for example – are referred to organizations with more expertise. 

Over the past decade, Miles of Freedom has become a valuable part of an informal, largely nonprofit-
driven network of reentry service providers in the Dallas area.

“The beauty of the relationship that we have with Miles of Freedom is we supplement what Richard is doing,” says Annette Jenkins of One Man’s Treasure, a nonprofit that provides free clothing – from shirts and pants to suits and work boots – to men released from prison.

Compared with the court system and the prison system, there’s very little government presence in the reentry space. In Texas, for example, the state Department of Criminal Justice spent $200 million on parole and reentry, according to the most recent budget. It spent over $3 billion on incarcerating people.

This lack of investment in reentry has public safety consequences, experts say.
A 2021 study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that within 10 years of release, 62% of prisoners are back in prison. What many people need is a foothold in society they can use to build a healthy and law-abiding life, says Ms. Jenkins.

“Every time that happens, then communities are safer,” she adds. And the benefits can last lifetimes. “It’s a short-term solution for that immediate [person], and long-term for their family. It’s generational.”

One in 3 adults in the United States have a criminal conviction, according to a 2021 report from the Alliance for Safety and Justice. In Texas, it’s 1 in 2. The burden of rehabilitating those who go through the criminal justice system has largely fallen on this patchwork of family, community, and nonprofit supports.

Because of these holes in the system,
Mr. Miles believes, justice remains elusive for people who have paid their debts to society.

“We close our eyes and allow this system to autonomously run. That’s where we have wrecks and casualties,” he says. 

“Justice is not [inherently] in the system; it’s what we want to come out,” he adds. “Even for [a guilty] person. We want that person to come out just.”