Prisoner Reentry Programming
Lorenzo de la Rosa
SPEA-J 439 Crime and Public Policy
School of Public Environmental Affairs
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
Introduction
Reentry into the community is a goal of the prisoner. It is a realistic aspiration as over 95 percent of those incarcerated will eventually be released. However, reentry is also a goal for the corrections system. Their approach of doing so involves intervening during the reentry process through programming. They seek to reduce recidivism rates after inmate release; recidivism is measured by re-arrest rates for released prisoners.
Discussion of policy
It is important to tackle prison reentry to ensure the safety of the community and to open
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Knowing these pieces of data will determine program funding and allow the focus to shift to the appropriate kinds of offenders.
Practitioners/Stakeholders Targeted
This paper is intended to inform corrections administrators, probation/parole, and community service vendors. Parole boards should know the following information as they serve as gatekeepers to make sure that inmates have effective release plans (Seiter & Kadela, 2003). Additionally, supervision of parolees can be negatively impacted by overwhelming caseloads for parole officers (Bouffard & Bergeron, 2006), so they must be cautious on how to conduct themselves to maximize positive outcomes.
Discussion of Research Literature
RNR Model
The corrections system relies on the RNR model, especially when it comes to designing treatment programs (Bourgon & Bonta, 2014). This is the case because assessing an offender’s risk and offender’s needs will shape responsivity efforts.
RISK: Risk takes into account an opportunity to offend and a lack of guardians, not just personal attributes (Travis, 2000). There needs to be a distinction made between low-risk offenders and moderate- to high- risk offenders (Bourgon & Bonta, 2014; Carter, 2015a). The latter two must be the focus of programming, because research has shown that including the former actually
Gideon and Sung (2011, p. 9) suggest that prisoners who have extensive criminal histories, abuse drugs and or alcohol, and who are unemployed are more likely to reoffend and have reentry problems. With that in mind, a successful reentry program should target for change those who are considered a high risk, should involve
By the lack of rehabilitation programs in the state and federal prison systems, the chances of convicts releasing and returning back to prison increases rapidly. The lack of rehabilitation is one of the most leading causes to an offenders relapse or to a new crime that will be committed within 3 years from the offender’s release. A rehabilitation program
The problem with prison reentry has been going on for many years in the United States, as I discussed in assignments one and two. Recidivism issues can often be linked with reentry issues because when offenders are returning to society, they need to be prepared, which is something that our current criminal justice system is not trying to achieve. In order to create some defensible solutions for prison reentry and the recidivism issues linked to prison reentry, the criminal justice system has to realize that there is no one overall solution because every offender have different offenses, different stories, different outcomes, and different prison sentences. Because of this, each offender's return to society will be different, and the reentry
During the past decade, there has been a newly found interest in prisoner reentry. This is due to a change in many of the factors surrounding the release of convicted felons and their reentry into to the community (Visher, C. A., & Travis, J. 2003). The number of people incarcerated in the United States prisons has quintupled and correctional facilities are working on getting them back into the community. Over half of the convicted felons that are released from prison return to correctional systems within one year of their release date. One of the most common reasons for their return into the prison systems is because many
In the United States, each day approximately 1,600 adults are released from state and federal penitentiaries to reintegrate back into the community (Gunnison & Helfgott, 2013). Reentry programs have been created all over the nation to help offenders successfully transition from prison into society. Offenders are confronted with numerous obstacles when attempting to reintegrate back into society. Ninety-five percent of offenders are released to reintegrate back into the community (Davis, Bahr, & Ward, 2013). Upon release, ex-offenders realize that despite the fact that they are no longer incarcerated, they face many restrictions. The restorative justice development rose to address the disappointment of the criminal justice framework to manage victims, offenders, and communities in an integrated way. A core focus of this development has been to expand the role of the community in advocating changes that will avert the issues and conditions related with crime and the demand for a criminal justice intervention (Hass & Saxon, 2012).
Today we see five prevalent goals of corrections including retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation and restorative justice. Goals employed in corrections change over time depending on several factors including the trends of thought in society and issues within the prison system. Politics as well as prison overcrowding also factor into determining which goal dominates. Retribution has a long-standing history as the most culturally accepted goal because people fended for themselves prior to organized law enforcement (Bartollas, 2002, p. 71). Incapacitation, the dominant goal currently, eliminates the threat by placing the criminal outside society, typically through incarceration, and preventing the criminal from having the ability to commit additional crimes. Deterrence, like retribution, has continued as a goal throughout history. In an effort to reduce the risk of crime, law enforcement attempt to deter criminals from committing crimes. Rehabilitation gained enormous strength with an attempt at moral redemption of the offender. Reformists believed corrections needed a makeover as they worked towards rehabilitation. Rehabilitation places more focus on the individual rather than the act in an attempt to rehabilitate the person. America did not begin to look at the corrections system more substantially until the 1970s as the idea of rehabilitation fell (Bartollas, 2002, p. 75). Restorative justice promises to restore the victim as the offender
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.
To support my assumption there is an immediate need for the implementation of a reentry plan; I have reviewed the opinions of other criminologist such as Reginald A. Wilkinson (2008). Wilkinson (2008) has written several articles on the need for incarcerated offender reentry plans. In one of his articles entitled "Incarceration and Beyond: A Personal Perspective” (2008), Wilkinson states, “the overarching idea is that prison reentry programming should commence upon each offender’s admission to the reception center” Wilkinson goes on to say that those released without a reentry plan will affect the percentage of those returning to incarceration and have a negative effect on a communities budget and security”. Consequently, I can assume that if a reentry plan is implemented immediately, the department will save and better spend its budget dollars and stop what I call “the swinging door effect”. I define the “swinging door effect” as the repeated return of offenders into incarceration within a short period of time such. Based on personal interviews along with release document reviews, I can assume a reentry plan was not implemented and likely created the “swinging door effect”. Consequently, I have found the repeated return of offenders into incarceration within a short period of time is a problem that keeps tax dollars from being spent wisely and will affect a community’s economy and security.
each other and in the likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior, and that this probability of committing a crime can be predicted from a wide range of factors, including current attributes and previous criminal behavior. Risk is important because, all other things being
Many criminals are sent to jail on a day to day basis. Once they have completed their sentence they are faced with many problems once they are “free”. These problems can be but are not limited to housing, employment, and substance abuse. The prisoner, once they are released, has a tendency to go back to their old ways and to continue the life of crime they were a part of prior to prison. To avoid this, while a prisoner is in prison, the staff creates a reentry program for the prisoner. The reentry program takes affect once the prisoner leaves prison. These programs are created within the community to help the offender from committing new crimes and to integrate them back into society. These programs are also created to help with
The prison population in the United States has been growing steadily for more over 30 years, a great portion of this population are returned offenders. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports, each year more than 650,000 offenders are released into communities with at least 5 million of the ex-offenders being under some form of community-based supervision (James, 2010). In an attempt to curtail the rate of recidivism, the Bureau of Prison contracts with Residential Reentry Centers (RRCs) to assist inmates approaching release. RRC’s provide safe, structured, supervised environment, as well as employment counseling, job placement and financial management assistance (Prisons, 2017).
With the dramatic increase in the prison population since the 1970’s, the number of people released from prison has also seen a steady increase. In 2009, almost 730,000 people were released from state and federal prisons, an increase of more than 20 percent since 2000. Those newly released are often condemned by their time in prison and usually have to deal with a loss of social standing. The transitioning process can present various challenges for them including but not limited to reconnecting with family and peers, finding living arrangements and employment. This transitioning process is better referred to as reentry. Reentry is the process in which individuals return to communities from prison or jail custody, with the goal of reintegrating into society. In addition to feelings of fear, anxiety and uncertainty, this process can be further complicated by the many indirect legal consequences of a criminal conviction, sometimes called collateral consequences, which can inhibit an individual's ability to reenter society.
Yes, there are significant changes needed in regards to offender reentry into the community (Wilkinson, 2001). The entire idea of this program is quickly spreading throughout the corrections world and has been long overdue (Wilkinson, 2001). Offender reentry does not simply mean releasing a prisoner back into society. Rather, it means that the offender is considered ready for release and in conjuncture with their community management; they will have a low risk of recidivism (Wilkinson, 2001). Utilizing different forms of reentry programs such as reentry courts, reentry partnership initiative, transition from prison project, and urban institute reentry roundtable, have been around for quite some time (Wilkinson, 2001). However, what experts
Offender reentry refers to when an offender has finished his term in prison and he is being released into the community or is being released to the community for community service before he finishes his jail term. It includes all programming that the system performs for the purposes of preparing the offender into the community (James, 2009). The one thing I found interesting is that though the idea of releasing these criminals is good, the system has not fully implemented the programs of assessing whether a person is actually ready for reentry. This is because in a significant number of instances these criminals result or continue with their habits of substance abuse and other anti-social behaviors causing a lot of problems in the community. Reintegration into the community starts from the decision of the authority to release the offender.
Practitioners, academics, criminologists, and case workers all agree that with the right reentry policies and programs in place, a convicted offender has a greater chance at being successfully reintegrated into society. Reentry has become an important part of prisoner release because it is effective for non-recidivism and for the safety of the community. Ideally, a risk assessment is done around an offenders sentencing so that there is more information available at release time which helps to decide on the best reentry model program before the release date. Once the parole board votes for release, the first needs to be addressed is housing, employment and health issues along with other concerns. New ideas continue to be considered so that every offender has an opportunity to succeed.