GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) -- Derek Mullen recently got married. A June wedding is not an unusual event, but Derek took a longer path than more men do in walking down the aisle.
Mullen spent 15 years in prison, a variety of theft and fraud convictions to support his drug habit. He was one of the first graduates of the Michigan Prisoner Reentry Initiative, or MPRI. It's a program now several years old that helps ex-offenders prepare for and manage their reentry into the world outside the prison walls.
"You can't do it yourself. I learned that by being in and out of prison seven times, that you can't do it yourself," he told WZZM 13's Peter Ross.
MPRI employs mentors like police officers and pastors. The Rev. Stedford Sims served as Mullen's mentor.
"Derek is the epitome of a success story - a person who pays his price to society, he has vowed to make a new start," Sims said after Mullen's wedding.
"In Michigan, and nationally, 95% of people in prison are getting out," said state corrections director Patricia Caruso. "The fact is we have an obligation to do everything we can to maximize public safety, because they will be getting out."
Jeff Guilfoyle, president of the Citizens Research Council, said the cost of corrections is eating up larger portions of the state budget. He cited several factors - corrections employee wages that are 25% higher than the national average (13% more than neighboring states), and parole policies that keep prisoners incarcerated longer than those in other states.
The MPRI program is credited with reducing the return rate of people to prison, or recidivism, from 55% before the program started, to 38% today.
The program targets prisoners before they leave correctional facilities, and follows up with them on the outside, providing guidance in how to better fit in with society.
Hope Network is one of the non-profit agencies that has hired MPRI graduates. Korey Anderson of Hope said of MPRI:"If the mindset of this model was incorporated all over America, you would see a drastic change in the prison population because people think differently, and they act, based on how they think."
The MPRI program was featured in a page one story today in USA Today. The newspaper and WZZM TV are both owned by the Gannett Corporation.
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