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Life After Prison: Robert Gladhill's story
by Cathy Wurzer, Minnesota Public Radio
March 4, 2003

Robert Gladhill was released from prison last August after serving time for criminal sexual conduct. He lived outside prison for several weeks before violating his probation and going back to prison. (MPR Photo/Cathy Wurzer)

Thousands of inmates in Minnesota's correctional facilities will walk free this year. According to the federal government, while about 24 percent of inmates are convicted of another crime and return to prison within three years of their release -- more than 80 percent of them remain free. For former inmates, adjusting to life on the outside can be difficult. They face hurdles, like finding a job and a place to live. Others, like Robert Gladhill, have other obstacles to contend with.

Lino Lakes, Minn. — Inmate Robert Gladhill went to prison in January 1996 -- Stillwater state prison. He was transferred to the Lino Lakes correctional facility in 1998. Gladhill had been living in Faribault at the time of his arrest.

"I'm here on first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct, against two victims," says Gladhill. "One's my daughter and the other is a next-door neighbor girl. I assaulted her (his daughter) between the ages of 9 and 11 from '91 to '95. The next-door girl, it was a one-time thing. I touched her, and got arrested in May of 1995."

After spending almost seven years in prison for the criminal sexual conduct conviction, Robert Gladhill talked to us a few weeks before his release. Gladhill is one of approximately 800 sex offenders who are released each year from Minnesota prisons. Gladhill, 42, met us in a conference room at the Lino Lakes facility last year on a hot and muggy August afternoon.

The Lino Lakes prison houses more than 1,100 inmates -- all of them men like Robert Gladhill, convicted sex offenders who are there to serve their time, and get treatment. Treatment is usually mandated, and state officials say there are penalties for offenders who refuse treatment, who quit or who are kicked out of the program.

	Steve Huot, Department of Corrections

Stephen Huot heads up sex offender and chemical dependency treatment programs for the state Department of Corrections.

"Usually, our target for sex offender treatment is 18 months. Many offenders have chemical dependency problems, and we like to see those offenders get a full chemical dependency treatment program under their belts, too," says Huot. "That can often add another six to eight months, so realistically speaking, many offenders are looking at two years or more of treatment if they really want to change the behavior that got them into prison."

Huot adds, though, that not all offenders end up in treatment for that length of time.

"There is a significant subset of offenders who come to us with even less than a year to serve in prison. Many times, those offenders just don't have time to get into treatment in our prisons," says Huot.

Robert Gladhill's long sentence allowed him to undergo intensive therapy, which according to Stephen Huot, involves a number of steps, from taking responsibility for his actions, to developing a plan to keep him from picking another victim. Huot says this part of treatment is called a "reoffense" or "relapse prevention" plan.

You got a whole set of new rules, a whole new way of life. In here, you got three meals and a cot. Out there ... it's more my responsibility, being accountable, than what I got in here. Out there, you don't have a lot of people who'll just hand you a job or money or food. You got to go out and earn it. - Robert Gladhill

"In a cycle, there are certain stop points ... many times, the child molesters identify that the start of their negative behavior was in some sort of negative emotions, like feeling depressed, or loneliness or feeling ostracized or inadequate," Huot says.

"What they do with that feeling is very important. If they isolate and don't talk about it, if they start looking through catalogs with pictures of kids in them, that's negative," says Huot. "Instead, what you want them talking to their support system. You want them going to a counselor, you want them realizing that they can't keep going down the negative road."

Robert Gladhill says he understands now how to keep his negative emotions at bay. while he says the sex offender treatment program, or SOTP, has been difficult, he thinks it has helped him.

"I'll never be cured. I look at it as being in recovery for the rest of my life, because I will have struggles," says Gladhill. "By using a lot of the tools I learned in SOTP and here in treatment, I have a better chance of making it out there, than if I didn't take the program. "

In addition to his treatment program, Gladhill has been busy, preparing to start his new life on the outside.

"It's getting close. I'm in an evening class here -- in an education/transitional group that gives me information. I took a driver's course. I got my permit, but I don't have to worry about taking a driver's test, just go pay and get my license back," Gladhill says. "I also applied for Social Security, and got a card. I also paid for a birth certificate that will be mailed to me later. I also applied for Medicare."

Gladhill figures he'll get a job when he goes back to Faribault. He wants to work with his hands, in manufacturing or maybe construction.

Tim Lanz, who coordinates the prisoner transition programs for the state Department of Corrections, says the transitional classes inmates take before getting out, focus a great deal on employment.

"As part of our pre-release classes, we spend a lot of time on job interviewing -- how to write a resume, how to retain a job. Once you're on the job, it's not a question of walking in and automatically, the job is yours for the next 20 years. A number of our folks have a hard time staying on the job, so we spend some time there," says Lanz.

"We assist them in doing surveys or doing informational surveys as to where the jobs are around the state. We provide vocational training in our facilities," Lanz says. "So we bend over backwards because we realize that if you don't have an income when you hit the street, you have a huge mark against you in terms of survival."

I'm seeing things before I offended. I admitted it, and I knew I had the problem. I said to myself, I needed the treatment. I need to learn more that when I go out again, if I ever do, I can let people know they can be safe, although they can worry, and that's all right. I can show people I can change. - Robert Gladhill

Lanz says another key to success for a newly released inmate is finding a place to live. Robert Gladhill says he's waiting until he gets out to find a place. He won't be released to a halfway house. That isn't mandated in his case. Instead, he figures he'll find a place in Faribault that he can rent by the week or month.

Gladhill is officially classified in the system as a level one sex offender, meaning his victims will be notified of his release, as will the local police department. He'll be on intensive supervised release after he leaves Lino Lakes. Stephen Huot of the corrections department explains.

"They have a minimum of four contacts per week with a corrections agent," explains Stephen Huot. "That's not 'come down to my office' four times a week. That's going to the offender's home, that's going to their place of work, stopping in at 7:30 on a Friday night, checking the refrigerator to make sure there isn't any beer in there, checking the mileage log of the car. They may also be subject to surveillence they are not even aware of."

Gladhill knows all of that. He also knows he may be the target of contempt in his community.

"One of the interventions I've been taught is to either walk away, or say 'do you want to talk,' instead of taking it personal," says Gladhill. "I'm going to a support group out there. I'll be with people who were offenders. I can go talk to them, if I'm hurt or stressed, to do things without reoffending."

Gladhill also has a friend back home. His sponsor, who'll help him make the transition to freedom. He says there will be many things going through his mind when he leaves Lino Lakes.

"I told my group, a lot of mine is fear -- not to fail, but living up to the expectations of my sponsor, but he says don't worry about it. He says he's looking for high things out of me, just to make it. Just to do what I'm supposed to do," says Gladhill. "Another thing will be relief, once I step out that door, it will be like a nice big breath of new fresh air, outside of here."

Robert Gladhill walked out of the Lino Lakes correctional facility Aug. 22, 2002. He had $159 in his pocket -- $100 in going-away money from the state, $59 he had saved up from his prison job.

His corrections agent was waiting to take him down to Faribault, the town where he lived with his family, before being arrested nearly seven years ago.

Gladhill picks up the story, shortly after his release from Lino Lakes.

"I didn't have much for housing. I was put up in a motel that you pay by weeks or months. It was $720 a month or $185 a week and I didn't have the $185, so I owed $35," says Gladhill. "What happened the first couple of weeks, I was up and happy. I was out. I had friends, my sponsor, who helped me get clothes and that, and I went to a food shelf, got food, went to social service, got food stamps."

Gladhill didn't have a car. So, he rode an old 10-speed bike around town. He only saw his sponsor, who is a friend of his, his probation agent, and he had some contact with a brother and sister. His victims and their families were told he was in town, but he kept his distance.

"The father of the other victim, the 8-year-old girl, had concerns about me and asked -- there's a place they go shopping a lot, like a Rainbow, that I not go in there, so I went to another one, HyVee -- and I did. I didn't want to hurt no one again."

Many sex offenders, like Robert Gladhill, are released with strict conditions they must follow. They include no contact with young children, no access, without permission, to a computer and the Internet, no possession of pornography.

Stephen Huot, the director of sex offender and chemical dependency treatment programs for the state department of corrections, says once offenders are released, they have a fine line to walk.

"It is problematic in some ways. We have found our violation rates -- the percentage of offenders returned to prison, not for new offenses, but for violation of those specific conditions -- those rates appear to be going up, from about 20 percent to about 30 percent, simply because I think there are so many conditions offenders have to follow," says Huot.

"But, we also see that as contributing to a safer society -- that if an offender is starting to ignore the conditions of his release, then that can be seen as being on the slippery slope to committing another offense," says Huot. "I'd much rather incarcerate that person proactively, than waiting until they offend and produce another victim."

Gladhill had been out of prison for two weeks before events took a turn. He applied for a number of jobs, but was either turned down, or told businesses weren't hiring.

"I didn't think work or money would be a problem, but it was. It was trying to find a place to live where I could afford it, and trying to get a good decent job," says Gladhill.

"Starting the third week, I got so frustrated and upset ... I'm not supposed to have pornography in my house or anyplace else, and I'm not allowed to use the computer without permission," he says.

Gladhill had access to a computer to conduct job searches at a state employment center in Faribault.

"So, I punched up some pornography sites, especially with young teens, and that is part of my violation with my daughter. But, I got off it right away, because I knew I was going into my cycle," Gladhill says. "What I should have done was tell my sponsor or my P.O. (probation officer), but I didn't."

Gladhill was running out of money and was close to having to give up his rented motel room.

"I made the decision that I wanted to go back to prison, because I knew I didn't have a place to go. I was giving up on myself, so instead of telling my sponsor and my P.O., I decided to go into the workforce center that day to sit there and wait until I got caught on the Internet, which I did."

Shortly after Gladhill was caught viewing pornogrpahy on the computer, he received word that he had indeed landed a job, at a Northfield business. But his violation was sending him back to prison.

"The job I had was going to pay $10.30 an hour, about $400 a week. That way I could pay rent and restitution and other fines, and it was hard, but it could have been done. I just never took the chance to try it. I wasn't out long enough."

Robert Gladhill was free for a little more than a month before being arrested on what officials call a technical violation of the conditions of his release. He was not arrested for another sex offense. Gladhill says he found out quickly that life on the outside is not easy.

"You got a whole set of new rules, a whole new way of life. In here, you got three meals and a cot," says Gladhill. "Out there ... it's more my responsibility, being accountable, than what I got in here. Out there, you don't have a lot of people who'll just hand you a job or money or food. You got to go out and earn it."

Gladhill has thought about his next steps.

"I need to learn my way to show others that yes, I'm hurting, yes, I fear this, yes, I'm scared that I do have these urges and these feelings," he says. "And I need to talk about them and family issues and not say, 'I'll handle that later,' -- to do that now, so when I get out there, I'll be able to see and ask for help."

As part of being sent back to Lino Lakes, Gladhill asked to continue in a treatment program. Stephen Huot with the state Corrections Department feels therapy benefits most offenders, although he admits there can be difficulties in treating them.

"The first difficulty is simply that the negative behavior that they are in prison for is very powerful, and their negative patterns of behavior are very powerful, and have usually existed for years and years before we start working with them," says Huot.

Robert Gladhill will remain at Lino Lakes for another year, before he's eligible for release. If he's freed, he would remain heavily supervised, most likely in a halfway house for offenders. Gladhill still feels he'll, one day, return to the outside as a successful member of society.

"I'm seeing things before I offended. I admitted it, and I knew I had the problem. I said to myself, I needed the treatment. I need to learn more that when I go out again, if I ever do, I can let people know they can be safe, although they can worry, and that's all right. I can show people I can change."

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