MDOC Financial Reality Fair held for Youthful Offenders

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JACKSON – The Mississippi Department of Corrections is working to reduce recidivism through regularly adding re-entry programs and these efforts include focusing on youthful offenders as much as adults.

Thirty youthful offenders between ages 14 and 18 participated in a Financial Reality Fair Wednesday at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County where they were taught how to successfully manage finances after their release.

The event included area businesses which sent representatives who manned stations with different topics. Offenders moved from table to table collecting information about finances, budgeting, insurance, transportation, food, and other life necessities.

Fran Dear, community relations representative of Regions Bank, was among the participating businesses helping the offenders learn how to navigate the challenges of making ends meet in the free world. “We’re telling them about goals. We’re telling them about responsible budgeting – the wants and the needs and how to tell the difference between those two,” Dear said.

The event included teaching offenders how to look their best when looking for jobs, such as tying a tie. Offenders received information for everything from personal hygiene to professional grooming. MDOC counselors enlisted the assistance of area experts to teach life skills the offenders didn’t learn before incarceration.

Youthful offenders are incarcerated on an average of seven years and many come into the prison system for theft and drug charges.