ASHLEY Brown had been in and out of custody since he was 12, before an employment program gave him back his life.
Premier and Broadmeadows MP John Brumby last week announced $5million for the New Workforce Partnerships program, which is expected to create more than 560 jobs.
The initiative was launched at Altona North's Toll Holdings, which is providing apprenticeships and jobs to 15 former criminals and drug addicts through the program. Society's most disadvantaged job seekers, including refugees, single mothers, public housing tenants and people with a mental or physical disability, are also set to benefit.
Twenty-nine organisations, including the Broadmeadows Employment Project, Australian Vietnamese Women's Association at Footscray, Moonee Valley Council and Mint Training Partnership at Braybrook, Maidstone and Laverton, are providing jobs.
Mr Brown, a 26-year-old forklift driver, is one of 150 former prisoners employed since 2001 under Toll's Second Step program.
"I was in a corrections facility and I was coming up for parole," the Campbellfield worker said.
"When I was coming up for parole, there was a program called PRP and they set me up with Whitelion and Toll.
"About a month before I got released I had a job interview. I started work the day after I got released. I got straight into the workplace.
"If I didn't have a job when I first got out, I probably would have reoffended. It's been pretty important for me because I've always reoffended, so this has been a chance for me to stay out of trouble and it's been good. I've always got money in my pocket."
His colleague, 24-year-old James McLachlan, said there was a "good chance" he would have returned to jail without the program.
"It's helped a lot. It's got my life together and I'm enjoying life now.
"It's kept me clean and off the street and going out more and enjoying life."
The pair have been with Toll for more than two years.
Robert Strachan, 23, of Melton, has been employed as a forklift driver with the company for more than a year.
He said the program was more than just a job.
"It gave me a meaning to life. It gives you a sense of purpose."
Mr Brumby applauded the Second Step program, which has been credited with helping reduce recidivism among participants.
"I guess at a time when jobs are at a premium, when there's a lot of pressure on all of us in the community, this is such an important program and such an important thing to do as a state and as a government and as a community."
Australian Vietnamese Women's Association chief executive Cam Nguyen said the program was in demand.
"We have a wide range of job seekers. We have some ex-offenders, but we also have single mums going back to work and people who are fairly recent arrivals [from overseas].
"We have opened our services to other communities.
"We have Africans, people from the Middle East and other Asians, such as Burmese.
"The state program is very well managed but it's not long enough. Every year or every month, we have to reapply."
Williamstown MP Wade Noonan said giving ex-prisoners a second chance through employment was an approach that worked.
"I've seen this with juvenile offenders where the YMCA has structured a project called the Bridge Project, which essentially creates a network in excess of 50 employers across the state in a multitude of industries and settings and geographical locations, to provide opportunities for young people to plug into that network.
"You have to ask, is the proof in the eating, with these sorts of programs. And it absolutely is, because of all of the young people - in excess of 50 young people - not one of them has reoffended again. Many of them, in fact, have gone on from a program like this and gained ongoing employment.
"That's outstanding because the statistics would suggest very strongly that of the young offenders coming out of our juvenile justice system, almost two-thirds of them will probably reoffend, and not just go back into youth detention, but might then progress to adult detention.
"That obviously has greater cost to the community, in terms of correctional services, than funding a program upfront such as this one."
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