Re-Entry Challenges Confronted
Lourriston Potter knows what life is like in a place where people avoid taking off their clothes, even in the shower. They fear what someone else might do to them, and showers in prisons are soiled with urine, semen and trash, he said. He plans never to return and wants to guide others away from that world.
“I don’t have degrees, but I have first hand experience,” Potter says. “I want to give people more opportunities.”
He was first arrested when he was 11 for selling drugs to an undercover cop. He grew up living in emergency housing, clothing himself by taking what fit from Salvation Army dumpsters. To buy food for his parents and siblings, he stole drugs from his dealer father to sell to friends of his crack addict mother. Then arrests for drugs and burglaries put him behind bars many times until social support, a wise marriage and the will to live a straight life rescued him from that cycle.
He knows the vulnerabilities of someone just released.
“Usually they need mental health services. In prison you have to adjust to a place where the strong prey on the weak with sexual attacks, brutality, cutting. People are stabbed over cards and cigarettes,” Potter said. “Every day someone’s hurt. You’re walking on eggshells. A guy you call friend may be setting you up to be stabbed if he’s on drugs and needs a bag. They’ll say, ‘If you don’t get that guy, we’ll get you.’ After five years in jail, you need five years to get back to reality.”
Re-entry support is available in Newburgh, but that may seem far away in Port Jervis, he said.
“You fought to come home. But you realize you have to pay for food, for haircuts. In the pen, you know when to eat and go to bed. You’re lost at home. People support you, but they want to know when you’ll get a job. But there are so many places you can’t work, or they don’t want you. So you go out in the street and find something familiar. You buy marijuana. You fall in with people with the same history,” said Potter.
He wants to start a re-entry program where, immediately after release, people do volunteer work that both gives them confidence in themselves and proves their worth in the world. They would learn about technology and have assistance getting a GED and finding employment.
“We want introductions to jobs, housing and food pantries,” he said.
When he emerged from Orange County jail after 10 months there, he volunteered with the Salvation Army, setting up events and serving food.
“In re-entry, people need to build confidence,” he said.
He and his wife, Shatisha, have created a nonprofit, the Capital Social Club Tree to support that purpose. Recently, they organized a community barbecue at Church St. Park that drew several hundred people. And o
n the organization’s Facebook page, Potter has his interview with Tyler Decker, now in re-entry. Potter encouraged Decker to volunteer in the community. So Decker has found his own way to be helpful. He talks about the expense of used bike parts and his willingness to help people with them. He can be found at the Port Jervis pump track many days, he said.