A mentoring project offers prisoners a strong chance of rehabilitation, writes Carl O'Brien,Social Affairs Correspondent

As he stepped out of Castlerea Prison, Bill might have been like other prisoners walking free from jail each day, stepping into the most uncertain of futures.

They could turn to their family or loved ones for support, although there's a good chance these relationships have been deeply damaged. A job is probably the best way to ease back into society, but a criminal record makes it almost impossible. The pent-up frustrations of being behind bars can take their toll, too. In that kind of environment, drink or drug problems aren't long resurfacing, if indeed they ever went away.

Most ex-convicts leave jail with the best of intentions. But given that the vast majority receive little or no rehabilitation, many soon find the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them. Latest research shows that a quarter of those released from prison re-offend within 12 months. About half are back behind bars within four years.

Chances are that Bill (43), with his history of homelessness and chronic alcoholism, would have become another grim example of the failure of the prison system. Except that his story is different.

He is testimony to the simple idea that, with proper rehabilitation, support and guidance, there can be life after prison. A year after leaving Castlerea, he's continuing to rebuild his life, one day at a time.

"I never thought prison would be good for me, but it was," says Bill, who's working part-time in a charity shop in Sligo. "So much has happened to me in the last year. I'm sober, I'm back in contact with my family and I'm making a go of things. It's still difficult, don't get me wrong. I take each day as it comes . . . but there is so much good in my life." He puts the sea-change in his life down to a new prison mentoring programme called You're Equal, aimed at helping former prisoners re-integrate into the community. Under the programme, established by the Equal Community Initiative, prisoners are matched up with a mentor who works with them for about six months before release. Prisoners are assessed to see what services or support are needed to prepare them for life and employment in the outside world.

On release, their mentor immediately links them up with services they need, such as housing or training. Mentors stay in regular contact with prisoners during the often bumpy return journey to life in the community, helping them through any crises or difficulties they encounter.

The results so far have been impressive. Out of the 90 participants in the programme which has been running for about a year in Cork and Castlerea prisons, the vast majority have not re-offended or returned to prison. The savings to the State are significant, too.

Compared with a cost of more than €90,000 to maintain a single person in prison for a year, it's possible to employ enough mentors to look after a case-load of about 50 people, whose chances of returning to prison are significantly reduced.

"When male prisoners are released, they tend to have very specific, immediate plans, like getting laid, having a drink; and eating a decent meal," says Jerry Williams, a mentor with the You're Equal project. "The important stuff, like getting a job, relationships, staying sober are just good intentions . . . A lot of what we do is help people realise they have choices in life. That they don't have to go back to the old life, to their old behaviour or the people they used to hang around with. And when the penny drops, their horizon changes dramatically."

BILL'S STORY IS similar to many in Castlerea prison, in that alcohol was at the root of much of his offending behaviour.

He grew up in a religious family in Mullingar. His father was a painter and decorator, who also played with Foster and Allen. His mother was a singer and housewife. Both were involved with the church.

At the age of about 13 he was sexually abused by a member of the clergy, an experience which he now realises sent him into a downward spiral of self-destructive behaviour.

"I felt I couldn't tell anyone, especially not my parents. I was always backwards after that, getting into trouble, playing the dunce in school. If there was trouble, I was involved. I didn't care. The rest of the family were saints," Bill says.

"Even to this day I wash myself so much that the skin comes off my hands. It still affects me. I can never feel clean enough." He discovered drink when he was in his late teens. Soon he was binge-drinking every day, and he started gambling. After marrying and having a child at 21, the relationship began to disintegrate as his drinking and gambling raged out of control. He lost his pensionable job as a decorator with the local health board.

"THERE WAS NO money in the house," he recalls. "I told so many lies about why the money wasn't coming, but I'd gambled it away. That first Christmas, there was nothing on the table and nothing under the Christmas tree. Vincent de Paul brought down a box of groceries." Desperate and depressed, he tried to take his own life, before leaving home in the hope that things would improve. They didn't.

His destructive drinking continued. He would wake up at the side of the road sometimes after all-night benders, although he managed to hold down a job thanks to considerate employers who tried unsuccessfully to get him help on a number of occasions.

The death of his youngest child, Leona, during a second marriage propelled him into the blackest of depressions.

He left home once more, his alcoholism worse than ever, and ended up homeless in Dublin. For several months he slept on the Liffey boardwalk, crippled by guilt, sadness and frustration. "I wanted so much to die up there. If I die up there, I told myself, no one will know I'm dead. No one will have to care." He ultimately ended up in prison after breaching a safety order which had been taken out against him by his wife.

"All my life, people had tried to help me to get better, but I wasn't ready. I kind of liked the hurt, I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave it," says Bill.

A turning point came when, through the You're Equal project, he began to access counselling, dealing in particular with major traumatic events in his life such as the death of his child and abuse he suffered when he was younger.

He also started to access therapy for his alcoholism and began preparing for life outside prison.

Slowly, the possibility that there was a chance to rebuild his shattered life began to sink in. "One of the programmes broke down my life down into different sections and aims," Bill recalls. "One was wanting to be sober, another was dealing with the pain. The last one was living. And that's what I'm doing today." His mentor, Jerry, believes the key to the programme's success is that participants have to want to change their lives.

"For someone like Bill, his courage, strength and commitment was the most important thing," he says. "It was the cornerstone of his success. We're like the cement between the various bricks of services out there, whether that's Fás, the social welfare services or probation services." After a sceptical response initially, the You're Equal programme is now highly valued by many involved in the prison services.

There are currently four mentors employed under the project, including two who are former prisoners. There's also a former Garda working as a mentor, who left the force to take up this job after seeing the importance of intervention to prevent recidivism.

Yet, despite its success, the programme faces an uncertain future. The project's funding is due to run out at the end of this year. The architects of the programme would like it to be mainstreamed across the prison service and to secure a budget from the Department of Justice, although there's no sign of that happening yet.

For Bill, meanwhile, who works part-time with a charity shop in Sligo, it's not all easy. Some days can be very difficult. He still faces the odd moment of crisis. But his project of rebuilding a life shattered by the chaos of alcoholism is continuing.

"Jerry gives me encouragement to do things; he's the jump that I needed to get going," he says. "A year ago I had nothing. I'm a year sober now. Now my wife rings me regularly, we've had two small holidays together, spending time with one another. I visit my mother and speak to her a lot.

"These days I can feel life in a way I didn't a few years ago. I was out the other day, looking at the colours in the sky, smelling nature.

"I love a walk along the beach, or watching the sun going down. All that means the world to me."