The problem is widespread. America imprisons more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. The rate of imprisonment was stable from 1925 to 1975, but it has skyrocketed during the past quarter century, more than quadrupling.

Today, one out of every 135 U.S. citizens is in prison or jail. Never have so many Americans faced the likelihood of imprisonment at some point in their lives. As the number of people entering prison escalates, so do the number of persons leaving prison: the U.S. Bureau of Justice estimates a record 614,000 prisoners will be released to their communities this year.

Unfortunately, within three years, two-thirds of these former prisoners will be re-arrested for felonies or serious misdemeanors, and more than 40 percent will be returned to prison or jail, according to a Bureau of Justice study. By far, the largest growth in the prison population consists of released prisoners who return to jail for parole violations or new crimes.

This revolving door has a devastating effect on offenders' communities, victims, friends, and family – not to mention the offenders themselves. Two percent of America's children have a parent behind bars.

Inside prisons, the number of education, job training, and other rehabilitation programs is declining. When offenders are released, the array of criminal justice programs and social service agencies that monitor and supervise them cannot keep the majority from being re-arrested. The odds then favor their return to prison. What can break this downward spiral?

Before she founded La Bodega de la Familia to be a 24-hour support center for family members of drug abusers under criminal supervision, Carol Shapiro spent her career working in government corrections systems, "trying to keep people out of jail and prison." She noticed that "government provides only a short-term intervention."

"Who takes care of the long-term?" she asked herself one day, and then thought, "Aha, what about families?" She had noticed that community-based, post-release services and prison discharge plans fail to consider the needs of offenders' families. "That was an exciting moment," she remembers, smiling broadly. "To think – there was a resource that most people hadn't thought about!"

The Magic of Family Work

La Bodega de la Familia brings this new concept to the criminal justice system: shift attention from the individual offender to providing support to the offender's family. "We think, 'What is it that can be done for family members?'" Shapiro said. "What are their needs, so they can help the offender?"

Family members – broadly defined to include close community members such as a godmother, girlfriend or pastor – are the leading experts in their own problems and the natural support system for an offender, Shapiro argues. Calling this the "magic of family work," Shapiro claims that La Bodega builds on the family's inherent strengths, and takes into account its weaknesses, to build more cohesive, resilient families that encourage drug addicts toward recovery.

Because they know drug abusers so intimately and worry about their well-being, family members are often the first to notice an impending relapse: a sister or childhood friend, before anyone else, can recognize the warning signs of a brother on parole slipping into old habits. Despite setbacks, they can provide long-term support, and help finding things like a place to stay, child care, help finding employment, and motivation to stay on track.

"We are not in the business of fixing families," Shapiro said. "Our work is to find out who can be the support. How can we engage the natural support of a family so that an offender can stay in supervision and get through it? – so that family members can try to keep them out of jail and prison for relapse? We also try to help the family reduce some of the byproducts of living with addiction – things like HIV and AIDS, truancy, theft, mental illness, addiction, and domestic violence."

La Bodega de la Familia targets the families of drug abusers because drugs are a major factor in the lives of those who are returned to prison: 82 percent of parolees who return to prison are abusing drugs or alcohol. And much of the explosive growth in the prison population is due to prosecution of nonviolent drug offenses: nearly 25 percent of New York State prison inmates have committed no other crime other than possessing or selling drugs.

"The idea was to test this model with drugs first, because that is the predominant group inside our jails and prisons," Shapiro said. "And there is a rising rate of drug use and involvement in the criminal justice system among youth."

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Trouble in the 'Hood Drugs are pervasive in the neighborhood surrounding La Bodega de la Familia's storefront office. The area is known as "Loisaida" (Lower East Side, 9th Precinct, Manhattan) by its predominately Latino and Puerto Rican residents. These are the "mean streets" of New York that have appeared in TV shows like "Kojak" and "NYPD Blue." The neighborhood's police precinct house, gritty storefronts and bars appear in the opening credits of "NYPD Blue." The reality that inspired these dramas dates to the late 1970s and early 1980s when this area – known as "Alphabet City" for its three main thoroughfares, Avenues A, B and C – became the hub of New York's drug trade. Drug trafficking in the neighborhood's derelict and burnt-out buildings spun out of control. In his 1996 book, "Infamous Manhattan," Andrew Roth says the intersection of East 2nd Street and Avenue B "probably saw more heroin retailing than any other spot on Earth." Around the block from this intersection, the site of La Bodega's office at 272 East 3rd Street was a small grocery (bodega) in 1995 that housed a drug-dealing operation. Clashes with police were commonplace. When police tried to break-up a robbery by competing drug dealers, a bloody shootout ensued in which a police officer was shot four times and paralyzed, and the gunman was killed. Several months later, Shapiro noticed the empty storefront during a ride-along with the New York Police Department. "It was a hovel," she recalls. She decided to turn a negative into a positive by renovating the storefront. The storefront before renovations: March 1996 Shapiro and her husband Bruce, an architect, live in the precinct and have been residents of lower Manhattan for nearly 20 years. They helped recruit local architects and contractors to contribute renovations for the storefront that once housed the ill-fated bodega. "More than 30 businesses donated the furniture and design elements," Shapiro says proudly. La Bodega opened in October 1996. Since then, the neighborhood has improved. While still plagued by drugs, it is safer and is a "vibrant" neighborhood of community gardens, small theaters and cafes, according to Shapiro. "There's a lot of pride in this community, and residents have lived here for many generations." "I chose this particular neighborhood after a rather rigorous search," Shapiro said. It was one of "seven communities that are the large feeders of our jails and prisons in New York, and I wanted to pick one of those." Public housing projects in "Alphabet City" She found the neighborhood had a high percentage of residents involved in the criminal justice system, and a high incidence of health and other problems related to drug use and addiction. These include HIV and AIDS, truancy (children often don't go to school because they have a guardian or parent who is a drug addict, and nobody gets them up in the morning), theft, poverty, emergency room admissions, low birth rate, and poor nutrition and health. At the same time, she was looking for positive attributes, including a strong set of community resources that La Bodega and its clients could tap into without leaving their neighborhood. The neighborhood offered a needle exchange program, methadone maintenance and detox facilities, health clinics, churches and settlement houses. And there was good political support in the community, which would help La Bodega generate recognition and funding. "Local politicians were really aware of the impact of drugs in the community," Shapiro said. "We were the first drug treatment program ever to be unanimously approved by a community board. Most people say, 'Not in my neighborhood,' but because we were able to show that we only serve people who live in this community, and we are not just serving the addicts – we are serving the whole family – it was very palatable politically." Finally, Shapiro wanted a neighborhood that was diverse and cohesive enough to look like communities elsewhere in the country. She found it multicultural, and that there is a diversity of incomes and a strong business community. "We serve 56 square blocks, which in many cases in America is a small city," Shapiro said. "There are between 50,000 and 60,000 people living in this neighborhood we serve, so it's a microcosm in some ways."

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Today, La Bodega's storefront sports an eye-popping, brightly-colored mural that shows local residents dancing, playing and making music. It was spraypainted by famous street artist Antonio "Chico" Garcia – one of New York's first wave of spraycan artists. Garcia began painting murals in the Lower East Side during the late 1980s to commemorate other neighborhood residents who had died in violent incidents.

The mural celebrates life, and signals to community residents that this walk-in community center is a friendly, inviting place. It also has become a beacon of hope for drug offenders and their loved ones. More than 500 families, with an average of four persons per family, have used its services.