Making Good on Thefts

With the astonished landlord trailing in his wake, the young burglar who had previously robbed the place roamed the apartment complex, suggesting a change of lock here, a sturdier door there and providing other professional advice on security. Another Minneapolis felon recently brought his disabled car to the garage where he had once passed a $123 bad check that landed him in prison. One thief now gets along so well with the shopkeeper he once stole from that he was offered a job in the store.

These three offenders are not engaged in an oddball plot to haunt their old victims. They are part of an unusual experiment in Minneapolis that aims for rehabilitation through restitution. Under the program, convicts sentenced for nonviolent property crimes live in a halfway house, take jobs and use part of their earnings to repay what they stole. Says Ron Johnson, supervisor of the Minnesota Restitution Center: "It's one thing to break into a garage. It's another to have to look the owner in the eye afterward. We're building a sense of responsibility."

Started 21 months ago, the program has so far handled 58 felons chosen at random from convicted thieves, forgers and the like in Minnesota prisons. The victim and the convict must work out a written contract. Forger Jerry Bixby, for instance, is now working to pay a debt of $643 in installments of $33 a month. When the victim refuses to cooperate, a symbolic contract establishes a set number of hours of unpaid volunteer work to make good the crime.

Once an agreement is made, the parole board releases the prisoner to the halfway house (on the seventh floor of the downtown Minneapolis Y.M.C.A). Counselors help find a job, and initially there is an 11 p.m. curfew. Group therapy sessions twice a week continue for the first six months. Though the debt is sometimes quickly paid off, the inmates must stay in the program until they are fully released from parole.

No Risk. The convicts are enthusiastic. "I would have spent 18 months in the reformatory," says Steve Norlund, who has been working off $417 in forged checks by assembling freezers. "I know I'll be going back if I screw up. This makes a lot more sense." Speaking for the eleven-member staff, Johnson adds: "When I was a parole agent, I would see my guys maybe once a month. Here we have daily contact." As for the victims, Garage Owner Carl Brown notes, "It's no further risk to me. He's making the payments. Maybe this will straighten him out."

Of course, it does not always work that way; authorities claim only a "modest success" so far. Of the 58 "clients," as they are called, 18 have either disappeared, committed new crimes or bent the rules sufficiently to be sent back to prison. Supervisor Johnson believes that it was one of them who burgled the Johnson apartment, leaving an anonymous thank-you note. The program will now try to improve results by dropping random selection. Meanwhile, there is special pride in the thief who last month became the center's first graduate. Now completely on his own, he is working full-time as a truck driver.

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