A man who creatively helps curb bad behaviors of parolees without throwing them back into prison has won a state award dedicated to the memory of former prisons chief Superintendent Tom Clements.
Joseph Cardona is a team leader in the Pueblo parole office of the Colorado Department of Corrections.
He is the given to corrections officers who embody Clements’ vision of helping convicts turn their lives around, according to Adrienne Jacobson, DOC spokeswoman.
Clements was at the doorstep of his Monument home in 2013.
Cardona, who began working for DOC in 2008, has attended college classes with parolees at Pueblo Community College, and personally tutors some of the parolees in math.
“He has great communication skills,” Cardona’s supervisor Kelly Messamore wrote in a recommendation for the award.
When parolees slip up by violating release rules, he has found ways to ensure they get the message loud and clear without going so far as to immediately send them back to prison, according to Messamore.
Sometimes county jails don’t have enough cells to hold parolees involved in a new program in which parole violators are immediately jailed instead of going through the lengthy process of parole revocation and imprisonment.
When that happens he has required parolees to come to the parole office for three full days to study “cognitive behavioral therapy” concepts, Messamore said.
His concern also extends to staff and volunteers, she said.
When staff members learned that a volunteer had previously kept ties with gang members on Facebook, some suggested they stop using the volunteer.
Cardona disagreed.
“He reminded staff of times in their lives when they needed to make a choice about their future and that this volunteer was at that point in her life. He argued that our office could be part of her success or failure and that we needed to give her a chance to succeed,” Messamore wrote.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, denverpost.com/coldcases or twitter.com/kirkmitchell
