HOW THEY SEE IT Stewart well positioned to do 'good' for others

By EDWIN MEESE III and KNUT ROSTAD
HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Dear Martha,
Welcome home and congratulations. According to published reports you have done quite well for yourself while serving time in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. As Newsweek noted, the increased valuation of your stock has made you "a billionaire once again." You have two new TV shows ready to go and a new line of furniture is slated to hit the stores the summer. And with the Kmart-Sears merger closing soon, you will have twice the shelf space for all your wares.
You have made the most of your prison stay and done "well." As a master of positioning, you also will understand that you are uniquely positioned to now do "good."
Again, according to published reports, you learned what it takes to be a model prisoner. You immersed yourself in prison life, and learned the prison version of going along to get along. You gave of yourself to many of the inmates and apparently made a difference in their lives. It's reported that you have come to understand that not all convicted felons are bad people.
Media glare
The same day you left Alderson under a media glare, an additional 1,500 inmates were also released from federal, state or local prisons or jails. There are only two differences between you and these other 1,500 inmates. One, you returned to a nice home, supportive family and friends and a good job. Most of the others did not. The second difference is, statistically speaking, 67 percent of the state inmates and many of the women you met at Alderson likely will return to prison after they have been released. It's safe to say you will not.
As we noted above, you are in a unique position to do more good for the other 100,000 women in state and local prisons -- the women you did not meet over the last five months. This good would be an extension of the class in entrepreneurial ventures for women you started at Alderson. You would be helping the scores of business leaders who would rather employ prison inmates than outsource to Mexico or India set up companies inside prisons. You would be helping them get over the bureaucratic hurdles so they can train and employ American inmates instead of foreign nationals.
We think you will appreciate the enormous impact that this training and employment has on women inmates.
Work training
Mostly beyond the media lights, there are some companies who are already offering training, work and hope for women inmates today. With the right assistance, there could be far more. What more fitting way to assist these 100,000 women than by helping provide the work training and experience in prison, so they, too, can return home to a good job?
X Edwin Meese III, a former U.S. attorney general who heads the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, is chairman of the Enterprise Prison Institute. Knut A. Rostad is the institute's director. Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.