By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - When Marrietta Wilson of Bond Hill got out of prison in 1996, she had to learn what she called a "quote unquote normal" life: How to pay bills. Keep a job. Talk to her kids. Stay out of trouble.

Most ex-prisoners don't learn those basics. So two-thirds are back in prison within three years.

With 650,000 prisoners being released from prison every year - about 2,700 in Hamilton County alone - the federal government wants to help ease the transition of those prisoners into society.

Wilson, 38, joined Rep. Rob Portman, House Democrats and clergy Wednesday to introduce the Second Chance Act.

It would authorize $112 million over two years to help ex-prisoners get drug treatment, student loans, mentoring, even housing.

With the backing of conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and the White House, the bill has a good chance of passage, both sides said.

Kansas Republican Sam Brownback said he would sponsor a Senate version. President Bush talked about prisoners' re-entering society in his State of the Union address and again Monday in Cincinnati.

"Recidivism, a big word, is also a big problem," said Portman, a Terrace Park Republican. "We are all fighting this fight together."

Ex-prisoners without real lives or jobs are more likely to commit crimes, get addicted or readdicted. They need to "act their way into a new way of thinking," said Cleveland Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones - to get in the routine, like Wilson, of a normal life.

"Just because I'm an ex-offender doesn't mean I have to live that offensive life I once lived," said Wilson, a mother of four grown children now raising a foster child.

Wilson, who served four years for felonious assault, now works for the city of Cincinnati.

About the bill: Highlights of the Second Chance Act

• Establishes a National Offender Reentry Resource Center, which would provide help and training for governments, religious organizations, and social service agencies that help ex-prisoners.

• Creates a federal task force to report to Congress on what works and what doesn't, and barriers the federal government imposes on ex-prisoners' return to society.

• Removes the age limit of 60 for grandparents to receive support and services while caring for grandchildren when a parent is in prison.

• Allows some ex-prisoners to get student loans that they are now barred from receiving.

• Gives grants for mentoring, mental health and drug treatment, and housing aid.

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E-mail cweiser@gannett.com