Pence praises 1st-year prison job-skills program

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence says a program aimed at teaching and training prison inmates skills needed to get jobs when they are released has led to more than 600 people being employed in its first year.

The Hoosier Initiative for Re-Entry program is a joint effort between the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, the Department of Correction and state businesses.

Pence says he wants Indiana to be the worst place to commit a crime and the best place for an offender to get a second chance. Pence says the program helps former inmates become self-sustaining, responsible adults.

Statistics show nearly 20,000 inmates are released from Indiana prisons each year. About 36 percent return to prison within three years. But that rate increases to 60 percent for those who remain unemployed.