Sioux City residential facility helps prepare inmates for release

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - In 2004, then President George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address, “We know from long experience that if [inmates] can’t find work, or a home, or help, they are much more likely to commit more crimes and return to prison.”

As a way to help, residential facilities across the nation are geared towards giving structure and stability to inmates who are about to re-enter society.

Since the late 1970s the Linn A. Hall Center in Sioux City has been the temporary home for people who were incarcerated and helps them get ready to re-enter the community.

“This place has been very friendly, very helpful. Without this starting point, I don’t know where I would’ve been,” said resident Jesse Compton. “I wouldn’t have had any place to go. This has given the opportunity to just become better rounded to come back into society.”

The facility hosts 99 residents. And as a part of the facility’s program, every resident must find employment, refrain from drug and alcohol use, attend treatment as ordered, and pay monthly rent.

“It’s taught me how to budget, I never knew how to budget before I came here. I know how to save my money now, it prepares you to enter into the real world,” said resident Justin Derby. “You get a job and get used to working every single day, the normal responsibilities that everybody has, it puts them back into you. And if you didn’t have them, it teaches you.”

Residents at the facility have already served a majority of their sentences and can be referred to the facility by the Iowa Department of Justice to serve their final few months working and preparing to transition back to life on the outside.

“My time at the Woodbury County Jail was good because it gives you time to analyze and formulate a game plan, so you don’t continue down the path you were going. Getting here allows us to put that plan into action and break that pattern of destructive behavior,” said resident Issac Schlenger.

Compared to their living situations at the jails and prisons they came from, residents say the environment at the facilities is far calmer and more conducive to rehabilitation and reentry.

“The lifestyle, the living here is a lot more calm compared to prison,” said Derby. “Prison can be kind of crazy.”

“There’s always people who are on some kind of crazy stuff. It makes the environment uncomfortable because you always have to be on edge,” said resident Benjamin Buckholtz. “In here, everybody just wants to stay out [of trouble] and go home. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air when you come here from prison.”

All of the residents KTIV spoke to had less than two months left before they are released, all with their own plans once their day comes.

“Continue to better myself so I don’t go down the path that I was,” said Schlenger.

“I’m going to go to a sober living home,” said Buckholtz.

“I plan on staying in Sioux City, and plan on staying at my job at Seaboard so long as I can find housing,” said Compton.

“I’m going to do the same thing I’m doing now. I’m going to go to work every day, go to meetings, talk to my sponsor and I’m going to be a conducive member in society,” said Derby.