Social Justice - Pioneer Human Services

At Pioneer, the rules are tough for non-work-release employees as well. Drug tests are administered regularly. Anyone who tests positive is out -- period. But if employees acknowledge a problem (chemical or otherwise) , then they are referred to counseling services. Only 2.4% of Pioneer workers test positive, compared with a national average of 7.3%.

The rules provide the structure that those in recovery need to take small steps forward. Still two months from the end of her sentence, Hodges is anxious about how she will fare after she is released. She knows that once the safety net of the work-release program is removed, her risk of returning to a life on drugs will increase. "My family and I are kind of nervous about it," she admits. "They see how far I've come, and they see the changes in me as a person. It would just devastate all of us if I were to relapse. But no one can say that it will never happen. It may not be what I want, but I'm scared because I'm an addict."

For those who are former offenders or recovering addicts (at least 75% of Pioneer's workforce), their ability to be open about their past mistakes makes following the rules easier. "Part of what I like about being at Pioneer is that I don't have to hide my past," says Marla Gese. "I don't flaunt it, but I don't have to hide it either. When I first got out of prison, I applied for jobs outside of Pioneer. But I learned that if you tell the truth about your past on a traditional company's application, then nobody calls you."

For people who don't want to change, Pioneer's open and understanding environment can be the worst thing about the company. For employees who are just coasting through the system or are falling into old habits, supervisors are tough to fool. They've had personal experience with crime and addiction and are unlikely to miss the subtle signs of an addict's relapse that another employer might not immediately recognize.

Gese believes that she is a much more effective manager at Pioneer because of her own experience. "It's very easy for me to recognize many of the things that people in recovery do, such as blaming others and refusing to take responsibility," she says. "In their mind, everything is someone else's fault: 'The world owes me.' When they start in on their pitch or manipulation, I just start laughing. I say, 'Wait a minute. I've been where you are. I've probably been through more than you have. I know what you're doing. You may not recognize it, but this is what I see.' "

Not all of Pioneer's employees make it. Nearly 11% leave after 30 days. About half of those drop out on their own; the rest are asked to go. Longer-term success is more difficult to track because former employees are not obligated to stay in touch. But, thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation, the company is trying. The results are encouraging: Based on a sample of 402 former clients, Pioneer found that 96.6% of them were still employed a year after leaving the company or completing the training.

The Pioneer route gives taxpayers a break as well. Sending an offender through a Pioneer work-release program costs $18,359 per offender annually; a traditional prison sentence costs $23, 525 -- a figure that is misleadingly low, given that these days, Washington State prisons are at 153% capacity. Cost is certainly not an insignificant issue: Many states, including California, Maryland, and New York, now spend more on prison systems than they spend on colleges and universities. And more than 1,000 new prisons have been built in the United States since 1970.

Mission Matters

It's a predictably rainy afternoon in Seattle, but Jim Ray's grin brightens the 120,000-square-foot warehouse that he supervises. Ray, Pioneer's vice president of distribution services, is beaming about a recent shipment from Hasbro. The boxes represent a big, new opportunity for work. The toy maker has 275,000 double-sided light sabers (each designed to look like the one in "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace") that are waiting to be shipped to retailers from Seattle's port. The problem is, they're defective: The engineers who designed them didn't include a protector for the battery coil in the handle. So whenever the light saber glows for more than a few minutes, the handle becomes hot. Retailers, many of which have run ads promoting the toy to whet the appetites of "Star Wars"-crazed kids, are up in arms. So Hasbro has hired Pioneer to unpack each light saber, to insert a coil protector in it, and then to repack the toy for shipment.

It is perfect entry-level work: Little training is required; the most complex part of the job is showing up on time. "We don't care where people come from," Ray says. "We want to give them a fresh start and an opportunity to take responsibility for their behavior -- by showing up on time, by doing the work that's given to them, and by being cooperative. Those are the baseline skills that they're going to need in order to work anywhere else."