Demand Grows for L.A. Group Guiding Women Just Out of Prison

Women don't land in prison at nearly the same rate as men, and those who do are a lot less likely to commit another crime when they get out. But women do face a host of unique challenges that can make reintegration into society a lot harder.

“There was no one there for me. I kept going back and forth to prison for almost 20 years,” says Susan Burton.

Her life began to spiral out of control in 1982, the same year her 5-year-old son was killed in a car accident in South L.A. She started drinking hard. That turned to hard drugs -- and that’s what eventually landed her in prison.

Inside, Burton says, she couldn’t find help for her addiction or the emotional pain fueling it.

"Why isn't there a therapist that I could've went to, to resolve my grief and my pain and my suffering?" asks Burton.

It’s a question that would her set her off on a 20-year criminal justice crusade to help hundreds of other women just like her.

When Burton was released from prison, she says she couldn’t find the help she needed in her own community of South Central L.A. But she did find it about 25 miles away, near the Pacific Ocean in the much more affluent city of Santa Monica.

"When I went there were all of these services,” recalls Burton. "And people in Santa Monica wasn't going to prison for what we were going to prison for in South L.A. Why do they go to treatment and I get chains?"

Determined to not let other women in similar circumstances fall through the cracks, Burton scraped together what little savings she had -- and swung open the doors of her own home in South L.A.

She named it A New Way of Life: a shelter, a waystation for women exiting prison.

“I slept in the dining room and I put beds in the other three bedrooms, so there were 11 of us in that house and it created a community of women helping women,” says Burton. "All women who've been incarcerated and just needed a place to rebuild their lives."

A New Way of Life now includes five transitional homes and a constellation of other services. There’s help with the big stuff you’d expect, like family reunification, job referrals, drug rehab. But there’s also attention to the little things.

“We let them cook for maybe the first time in a long, long time,” says Burton. "You don't get to smell the fresh fruit in the grocery store (in prison), all of these things you've known that you don't get."

Women might stay at A New Way of Life for just a few months or for a couple of years. A couple of former clients have even gone to replicate the New Way of Life model in other parts of Southern California where such resources are hard to come by.

Burton doesn’t have an exact count of how many have come through the doors -- close to 1,000, she thinks -- but she does keep the letters sent from behind prison walls, hundreds of them neatly filed in enormous cabinet drawers.

She keeps every piece of correspondence. I ask her why.

Burton seems a little unsure how to answer at first.

“Well, sometimes I keep them because after a woman comes, and she doesn't want to respond to the program, sometimes I go back and get the letter and I'll say, 'Do you remember writing this letter?' ” Burton asks with a firm tone as if the woman were in the room. "What’s changed?"

It's that unwaveringly firm yet supportive tone that's helped guide scores of women back on track.

"She was the first face I saw when I came home," says Ingrid Archie, a resident and community organizer at A New Way of Life.

“(Burton) came and got me from that bus station and brought me to A New Way of Life,” says Archie.

When Archie landed back in prison not long after completing a stint at A New Way of Life, she hesitated to reach out to Susan Burton again. She wrote anonymously from prison, hoping to conceal her identify as long as possible. When Archie called to her confirm her spot, Burton answered the phone.

"And we talked and I told her I was ashamed and she explained to me that she understands that life happens, but to stay connected, so that when things are going on you have people you can reach out to," says Archie. "And I didn’t do that. I wanted to handle it on my own."

A New Way of Life says the majority of women who come through its doors stay out of prison. But associate director Tiffany Johnson says there are some, like Archie, who need a second or third try.

"We can be there to hold her hand and guide her into the right direction of things to do; talking to an attorney, having somebody who could represent her," says Johnson. "That's what A New Way of Life offers. We’re not the solution. We can just be there to assist in the solution."

Since it opened its doors 20 years ago, A New Way of Life has gone far beyond offering just a warm bed and a hot meal. About 10 years ago it launched a legal clinic with the help of the UCLA School of Law. It's helped scores of women remove nonviolent felonies from their records. That can make it easier to get work and qualify for public housing.

Johnson says demand for services is growing in the aftermath of Proposition 47, the voter-approved state initiative that qualified thousands of nonviolent felons for early release.

“We want to provide all these resources for all these people but we can’t. But provide for you can and it opens up,” says Johnson. “You know, we have a limited capacity. But when Miss Burton started, she only had a capacity of three rooms, I think maybe six people.”

Johnson first came to A New Way of Life as a client after doing time for manslaughter. She killed a man in self-defense during an argument. It was her mother’s longtime boyfriend -- a predator, says Johnson, who sexually abused her for years when she was a child.

"I lacked self-esteem for years. I will venture to say that all of my life I didn't have it, but they helped me," says Johnson of A New Way of Life. "I started to get dreams back. I didn't have dreams before. Or I had nightmares."

One thing Johnson never dreamed of is taking over for Susan Burton. But she is. After 20 years at the helm, Burton is stepping down from the organization. Tiffany Johnson will be taking over as executive director. She’s nervous and excited.

"You know what, there’s a lot of the same emotions that I had when I came home from prison, something new, unfamiliar," says Johnson with a smile.

"There's a lot behind the title. And Susan Burton is big shoes to fill."

As for Susan Burton, she’s now in her early 60s and getting a little weary of the long hours and the long trips across the country lobbying on behalf of the organization and the women it assists.

She plans to keep a seat on the board of A New Way of Life, but her reform-minded drive will take new forms. That includes a project that will take her back inside prisons, around the world, to research how they can be better designed and managed.

A few weeks ago Burton also submitted the first draft of a memoir to her publisher -- a process that meant reliving those long days of incarceration.

"Prison leaves a stain in your consciousness,” says Burton, her voice a bit weary. "It leaves a stain in you that you just don't forget. You have to kind of detox that."