Amity Foundation Reflection

Founded 1972 and located in Chicago, the Safer Foundation is the largest community –based provider of employment services for ex-offenders in the United Sates. The name “Safer Foundation “was given by its founder, Raymond “Bernie” Curran, a former priest, because he believed it would reduce crime on the streets. The Safer Foundation’s primary goal is assisting ex-offenders find jobs but also develops life skills and a positive mindset that helps ensure long term employment and success in life. The Safer Foundation has a professional staff of nearly 200 located in two states, Illinois and Iowa.

In our facility, help groups will be established with the prisoners. Our duty is to try to rehabilitate the prisoners in the system if they want to be rehabilitated. We will have a group of prisoners in a guarded room in the facility, with counselors who can speak to them in a group. The prisoners at some point may be able to help one another understand what their issues have been in the past that helped to lead them to the situation that caused them to be sentenced to this facility. Our goal as a helping group for the inmate is to get them to understand if they are ever eligible for parole what they can do in life to avoid the situation that put them in prison in the first place or ways to think quickly to a less dangerous situation where they will be able to make a better choice in life.

"Local faith-based and community organizations (FBCO) reentry programs can provide ex-prisoners with the compassion and services they need to thrive in the communities they are returning to. Placing ex-prisoners in steady employment that matches their abilities and needs is an important effort that helps ensure the safety of America’s streets and the successful integration of ex-prisoners into America’s communities. Recidivism is a vicious cycle of crime, prison, more crime, re-imprisonment, and so on. Statistics show that more than two-thirds of released prisoners will be charged with new crimes within three years following their release, and over half will be reincarcerated. According to criminal justice experts, an attachment to the labor force through stable employment, in concert with family and community

Minorities in these urban areas have a hard time finding employment that could support their family efficiently. Most end up dropping out of school and join or are forced to join gangs. They are more likely to turn to crime as a means of survival which increases their chances of building a criminal history. This type of criminal activity also ties back into the Three Strikes Law (Nicosia, MacDonald, & Arkes. 2013) which states that the offender will be incarcerated on their third offense, no matter how minor the charge. The lack of rehabilitative resources in the criminal justice system leads to repeat offenders also. Although it should not be the responsibility of those in society who are doing the right thing to pay for services for those who are incarcerated, we are doing ourselves an injustice if we don’t. If we are not providing rehabilitative classes, vocational/job training, or some type of counseling while prisoners are incarcerated, we are defeating the purpose of locking them up. Criminal justice referrals account for almost 37% of drug treatment admissions (Nicosia, MacDonald, & Arkes. 2013. p. 78). If we don’t address the issues that got them incarcerated in the first place, they will turn back to the only life they know that provided fast money. I

Society has often struggled with how to help prisoners once they are released back into civilization. The number of prisoners in the American prison population has grown considerably in the last couple of decades. For many prisoners the process of arrest, incarceration and release is a continuous cycle, there is very little hope of them living in civilization for a long period of time. There is also a high a retention rate of the returning offenders. A large portion of these prisoners are minorities of African Americans and Hispanics face more time in jail or prison is extremely high. The success rate of offenders is measured by how long one can avoid being incarcerated and not by being reintegrated into civilization. These issues have become a national crisis in Joan Petersilia book titled “When Prisoners come home: Parole and prisoner reentry,” she address these issues head on. The main purpose of this book focuses on how to help prisoners once they have been released out of prison. Petersilia gives efforts for future reform to alter the in prison experience, change prison release, revocation practices, revise post prison services and supervision as well as a working with the community to enhance informal social control. These are efforts that represent a better policy towards reform of prisoners and re-entry in the system. The book goes into great detail about the suggestions Petersilia makes and why it is necessary for change.

The growing number of individuals exiting prison each year has prompted renewed interest among academics and policymakers in the challenges of reintegrating former prisoners into society (Visher & Travis, 2003). The challenges of reentry appears to be daunting, as the prospects for successful reentry are often dim. More than 40 percent of those released return to prison within three years, a phenomenon known as the “revolving door” (Pew Center on the States, 2011). This “revolving door” is a

The mission of the Alston Wilkes Society (AWS) is to rebuild lives for a safer community. We give people who are facing insurmountable obstacles the tools they need to rebuild productive lives. AWS focuses on providing services to offenders, former offenders, homeless veterans and at-risk youth in order to prevent and reduce crime in South Carolina’s communities. Once provided with the tools needed to get their lives back on track–housing, transportation, job training/placement, counseling–these populations are more likely to achieve successful

After reading the book I have gained a new understanding of what inmates think about in prison. Working in an institution, I have a certain cynical attitude at times with inmates and their requests.

Since volunteering I have meet some admirable, nurturing, and complexed group of people who have devoted their careers to helping families in crucial situations. These group of inspiring people have influenced me in so many ways- especially everyone at the Juvenile Detention Center. When I look around in a room at a meeting for a case, I am absolutely amazed by the number of people that really want to actually help these children get back home or find a safe place to live and improve every aspect of that child’s family life. And we did even know these people but we are all here for the same coming good no one is against

Tia’s main goal is provide these men and women with a job because most businesses will not give felons a job and to teach them a marketable skill that can be applied to other jobs. I have had numerous interactions with veterans who have received a service dog from ECAD and it is truly life changing to see and hear how the dogs that I helped train will help them regain their independence. I have found that helping others is an intrinsically rewarding experience that I enjoy very much. Although I do not have any experience with being imprisoned, I feel that I could be supportive and lend a friendly ear. Also I could share my knowledge about dogs with them. I believe that I could learn a lot from these parolees in addition to teaching them as much as

At the same time, the seeming success of the Elmira Reformatory led to recommendations that that success be more widely publicized. With greater publicity, came thousands of visitors to Elmira and other states began to call on their own prisons to be modeled after the Elmira Reformatory where inmates were “wisely and humanely treated” (Brockway, 2012, p. 238). The Elmira Reformatory was widely recognized as a “new departure in the treatment of adult male felonious prisoners” (Brockway, 2012, p. 242).

We were asked to watch a documentary filmed by PBS called, A World Seldom Seen. In this documentary they followed incarcerated, mental illness prisoners as they were released from jail/prison. PBS followed six men on their journey adapting to life outside of the barbed wired fence that surrounded the place they once called “home”. The six men consisted of; Jerry Tharp, Michael Grissett, Lynn Moore, Benny Anthony, William Stokes, and Keith Williams. These man all contained similar conditions, they were ex-cons who suffered from a mental illness.

My passion and commitment to this field will give me the drive to go that extra mile in order to make things happen. While my vision will help reduce the recidivism rate among women in my community I firmly believe that we will accomplish something even greater than that. It will form a type of sisterhood as each woman who is able to take the steps in rebuilding their lives will step up and use what they have learned to help another. As these women move on past living in the program they will be living productive lives and be contributing member of society. Every success will make another’s journey a little easier. Each success helps break down the walls between the ex-con and the

In the course of recent years, exploration has demonstrated that some recovery gatherings are successful. At the ACI, sex offenders, aggressive behaviour at home and substance misuse treatment program bolster this claim. The Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institute Evaluation apparatus has discovered every one of the three projects as successful methods for restoring

Whether guilty of crimes or innocent, our incarceration system is an issue that many activists rally around in terms of its success and promise in correcting and rehabilitating criminal behavior. So, to read letters and hear the voices of those who are living on the marginalized edges of our society, but who rarely have a voice in the issue that’s being nationally rallied around, is an uncommon circumstance that should be noted and have more attention and action drawn to. Their desire to educate themselves within the confines of a prison wall is real and heard by those of us who take time to spend their weekday evenings in the bottom of a church basement, sorting through donated books, and reading literary wish-lists of those who are incarcerated.