Long Term Effects Of Reentry Programs On Reducing Juvenile Recidivism Essay

his paper examines multiple factors that help determine reasons for why there is such a great amount of people relapsing back into criminal behavior once released, which only leads them into a federal or state prison. Recidivism can be perceived into different category’s based upon the why factor. Criminal acts that result in rearrests, and reconviction or return to prison with or without new a new sentence during a three-year period following the prisoner’s release is considered recidivism. There are many different reasons why a person goes back into prison once being released, whether by choice or force or even just nature of habit. Many studies have been conducted to find a pattern or reason on why recidivism is so common. Available

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).

Community Based Corrections programs, also known as halfway houses or Residential Reentry facilities, were established as an alternative for prisoners to complete their term of incarceration in a community setting. Residential Reentry facilities provide a structured environment for low, minimum, and high-risk offenders while allowing them to integrate back into society. Specifically, Residential Reentry facilities provide offenders the opportunity to gain employment, establish financial responsibility, and obtain suitable housing. With the overcrowding of prisons, the ability to participate in Community Based Correction programs enables the convicted criminals as well as prison staff to lessen the loads that come with working in a prison as well as improve the lifestyle that comes with incarceration. As with all things in life, there are positive as well as negative outcomes to the participation of these convicted criminals in community-based programs. In viewing the positive and negative outcomes, the end

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

America sends more of its citizens to prison than any other country in the world. The United States, though only five percent of the world’s population, incarcerate 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. America is supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of the incarcerated. About 6,937,600 offenders were under the supervision of adult correctional systems at year end 2012. Around two-thirds of the prison population which is released annually (637,400) will recidivate within the first three years of release (Glaze, 2013). The prisoner re-entry programs that are currently in place are clearly ineffective and insufficient. A reallocation of the budget is the first step towards fixing our re-entry programs. Once the budget is under control, the government needs to have a complete overhaul of system. There are many prisoner re-entry programs that have shown promise which means there is already a blueprint to success available.

There are numerous studies that examine the recidivism rates in various states and in the nation. The studies come back with similar results. A Department of Justice study of recidivism in 30 states found that more than two-thirds (67.8%) of released prisoners were arrested for a new crime within three years and more than three-fourths (76.6%) were arrested within five years (DOJ Recidivism 2010). Other studies give similar numbers, including the fact that over half (51.8%) of people released from prison end up back behind bars (Jonson and Cullen 2015). These numbers indicate serious problems with prisoner reentry into society. Some scholars go so far as to claim that the results of various studies “reveal that inmate reentry is marked by widespread failure. High proportions of released offenders have contact with the law, often soon after reentry, and about half are reincarcerated,” (Jonson and Cullen 2015).

Each year, more than 600,000 citizens return to their homes across America after serving time in federal or state prisons. While another 11.4 million individuals cycle through local jails. Federal prisoners are held at the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a law enforcement agency of the U.S. Department of Justice and the country’s largest and most complex prison system—housing nearly 200,000 prisoners in 122 federally-operated correctional institutions, 13 privately-operated secure correctional facilities, and a network of more than 175 community-based centers around the country ("Roadmap to Reentry: Reducing Recidivism Through Reentry at the Federal Bureau of Prisons | REENTRY | Department of Justice", 2017).

Various States and stakeholders within those states have addressed crime/recidivism and have established reentry and risk assessment strategies. The purpose of the assessment strategies is to help a wide range of ex-offenders reenter society and to also promote public safety. The states have highlighted their successes and challenges in their attempt to reduce crime and recidivism rates. These states

In order to determine whether or not focusing on re-entry services helps reduce overcrowding in prisons a longitudinal outcome evaluation study will be used. The study will be completely voluntary and consent will be required at the beginning of the study. Participants are not required to complete the study; however, a monetary reward will be given for successful completion. Other than the monetary reward, no other incentives will be offered to participants. The focus will be on two prisons, one prison will have already implemented the re-entry services policy and the other will not. Our sample will consist of inmates who have served five to twenty years in prison and will soon be released. The ideal sample would consist of at least 50 inmates from each facility. Various demographic information will be collected such as, age, race, gender, highest level of education, and home city at time of arrest. Other basic information that will be gathered will include, whether or not they had familial support while incarcerated, and whether or not they have familial support upon release.

The third principle states, “while incarcerated, each inmate should be provided the resources and opportunity to build and maintain family relationships, strengthening the support system available to them upon release” (Roadmap to Reentry: Reducing Recidivism Through Reentry at the Federal Bureau of Prisons | REENTRY | Department of Justice, 2017).

The first factor is that the sheer number of individuals incarcerated nationwide in the United States is “717 per 100,000” (Schmalleger, & Smykla, 2015, p. 6). Moreover, the issues associated with these numbers are a substantial increase of female inmates, an apparent racial bias, inmate age upsurge, and the reasons for incarceration (Schmalleger, & Smykla, 2015). The number of prisoners is important because the resources used for incarceration takes away from other necessary societal programs, which detracts from public welfare. Meanwhile, the rise in female inmates means more broken families,

To ease the transition for service members from a military career back to the civilian sector the military has taken accountability of connecting service members to the necessary services and resources. Therefore, the Criminal Justice system should follow the role of the military and take the lead of restoring its inmates to be productive members of society. The prison administration does an excellent job of breaking down people who have placed in coercive organizations as a form of punishment. However, punishment is only a portion of the process. Prisons must also rehabilitate and reform its inmates, which should include reentry programs. Community based reentry programs should only be used to supplement the Criminal Justice system to monitor

Prison classification is an important process in the U.S. correctional system and community corrections. Every state utilizes different types of classification instruments or methods to classify their inmates. Penal institutions in the U.S. have evolved tremendously in terms of procedures, decisions and classification. Studies from Clear et al. (2013) indicate that offenders in the United States, which consisted of men, women, and children, were all confined together in the same prison in the early 1800’s (p. 296). In our current era, correctional facilities for men and women, now have rehabilitative programs and modern identification systems that have the capability to measure “static risk factors such as criminal history or severity of current crime” (Christensen, 2008, p. 18). Modern correctional facilities do not mix the entire population of men, women, and children offenders in the same jail or prison, but rather, in separate correctional facilities with different levels of security and monitoring. This case study will briefly explore prison classifications between men and women in the U. S. correctional system. We will also examine why women prisoners are called the “forgotten offenders.”

In today's society more and more people are being sentenced to prison. An increase in repeat convicts has been steadily on the rise. This can strongly be contributed to mental illness, drug abuse, and most importantly the lack of proper rehabilitation.

Our traditional criminal justice system needs to undergo fundamental rethinking, and ways to restructure the way it is operated. In most places these changes are starting to take place. The judicial system approaches to policing, sentencing, imprisonment, is changing in significant ways. Many prisoners (men/women) “leaving prison or jail face many challenges to successful re-integration in the community” (<http: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2685368/>), and this can lead to recidivism.