Understanding to what extent the stated mission of a particular organization or agency contemplates the safe and successful transition of people from prison to the community must precede efforts to change that organization's culture. In other words, policymakers and advocates should first assess how an organization's mission aligns with successful re-entry, and (in the event that there is little or no alignment) develop a strategy to make appropriate adjustments.

The way that the missions of some social service and health organizations relate to re-entry is not always immediately apparent, however. For example, the mission of most housing authorities is to provide safe, clean, and affordable housing to low-income and disabled citizens. Within these parameters, officials who operate public housing understandably do not see reducing recidivism, or, for that matter, preventing homelessness, as their mission.

Accordingly, to determine how an organization's mission relates to re-entry, state and local government officials and community leaders should determine how prisoners or people released from prison or jail correspond to that organization's service population. Both geo-mapping and data matching between systems' client rosters or databases are extremely valuable tools to illustrate this overlap. (See Policy Statement 2, Development of a Knowledge Base, Recommendation c, for more on mapping.)

Example: Neighborhood Analysis, Corporation for Supportive Housing (NY)

The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) used maps developed by Eric Cadora (a consultant to private foundations and state and local governments) that provide a geographic analysis of criminal justice resources in New York City neighborhoods from which the majority of prison-bound offenders originated. CSH assessed what services and housing were serving low-income and homeless people (and could potentially serve people leaving prisons or jails) in the most heavily impacted neighborhoods. By matching the service needs of releasees with organizations providing those services, CSH could identify synergies between organizations that may not have been serving these individuals, but whose missions and capacity would allow them to extend their services to this population.

Once the overlap between clients of various systems and people returning to the community from prison or jail is established, administrators in each system should incorporate the returning prisoners explicitly into the description of its service population, and they should communicate this development to staff (see Recommendation c, below, for some of these opportunities). Administrators should emphasize how serving this population enables collaboration across agencies, which presents a new and exciting opportunity for wraparound service provision. Such collaboration is often best facilitated by the appointment of a staff member to bridge the organizations. Sometimes referred to as a "boundary spanner," the person would be responsible for acting as a traffic cop and managing the communication among agencies on a day-to-day basis. (See Policy Statement 5, Promoting Systems Integration and Coordination, for additional discussion of the role of the boundary spanner.) Only by charging specific staff members with collaborative tasks, and by explaining in compelling terms the self-interest all staff members should have in serving this population, can administrators change the culture of their organizations. Otherwise, staff members are likely to focus on only the added position responsibilities and difficulties of serving individuals released from prison or jail, rather than the opportunities for improving service provision.

Example: Assembly Bill 34 (Assembly Bill 2034), California Department of Mental Health

Assembly Bill 34 (AB 34)--reauthorized as AB 2034 in 2000--established demonstration programs in California to reduce homelessness among people with mental illness, identifying people released from prison and jail as one key component of the target population. Serving this population effectively required the integration of numerous services--including substance abuse, mental health, and housing--and extensive collaboration with departments of corrections and county jail systems. Administrators of the relevant organizations began the joint venture by recognizing the significant overlap in the homeless population with mental illnesses and the population leaving prison and jail. They determined that corrections-based referrals and eligibility screening could enable them to identify a population matching their existing target population. Because the partners were able to identify the re-entry population as a primary--rather than an adjunct--recipient of services, they designed outcome measurements specifically tailored to this population. In short, the establishment of the program, and the subsequent recognition of how the population related to the missions of each of the organizations, served as a catalyst for the integration of services, a change which reduced homelessness and recidivism and improved client functioning.

In addition to comparing an organization's service population with re-entering prisoners, state and local government officials and community leaders should review the performance measures used to assess the quality of services provided by an organization. (See Policy Statement 6, Measuring Outcomes, for more on performance measurement.) These measures are typically an important component of an organization's mission statement, and they may need to be revised to be compatible with a re-entry initiative. People released from prison or jail have perhaps the most challenging service needs of a wide range of potential clients; for this reason, they can deflate certain performance measures. For example, under the Workforce Investment Act, a key performance measure for One-Stop workforce centers is the number of workers placed in jobs--a disincentive to serving men and women who are particularly hard to place, such as those who have criminal records. To minimize the impact of this factor, state workforce boards should look at other measures, such as the salary a client averaged six months prior to job placement and the salary that the client averages six months after placement. Such a measure would enable program administrators to demonstrate significant impact and to set numeric goals.

This section has addressed how the stated missions and performance measures of community-based organizations can enable or impede re-entry work. Ideally, the missions of institutional and community-based corrections agencies will address re-entry directly. As stated at the outset of this policy statement, however, an explicit mention of re-entry in an organization's mission statement does not automatically translate into a culture among staff that will enable a re-entry initiative to thrive. Policymakers, practitioners, and advocates should use the policy statements in this Report, and the subsequent recommendations provided under this policy statement in particular, as checklists to inventory policies and procedures in their state or local department of corrections, parole, or probation. The results of this inventory should provide important insight into the existing culture of the organization.