RPC Newsletter - 7/27/2007
CSG Justice Center Convenes Meeting of State and Community Leaders to Foster Reentry Partnerships
The Council of State Governments Justice Center convened a meeting in Miami last month to discuss how to improve collaborations between state governments and community and faith-based organizations to serve people released from prisons and jails. Representatives from federal and state agencies, community and faith-based organizations, and private foundations offered their perspectives on the most significant factors limiting successful reentry partnerships, and what can be done to address them. The Justice Center convened the meeting with support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, U.S. Department of Labor.
Community-based organizations have an extensive history of outreach and service to people involved in the criminal justice system. However, there are numerous challenges that impede efforts by state governments and community and faith-based organizations to work together on reentry issues. Staffs of such organizations may have insufficient training to address the unique needs of people released from prisons and jails, difficulty complying with government regulations and contract requirements, and inexperience tracking and reporting program outcomes. Government agencies may have limited familiarity with small, neighborhood-based organizations and the services they provide, and their requests for proposals may not reach this constituency.
Participants at the Miami meeting discussed strategies to overcome these challenges, focusing on five specific areas for improvement:
- opening the lines of communication between state governments and community-based organizations
- providing training and resources to improve services and help organizations navigate state agencies
- making government agencies more accessible to smaller organizations
- defining target populations
- measuring performance outcomes
Co-chairs of the meeting were Justice Center board members Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry (D) and Senator Stephen Wise (R). Aubry is a member of the New York State Assembly and chairs the Assembly’s Correction Committee. Wise is a Florida State senator. He also chairs the Education Pre-K-12 Appropriations Committee and is a member of the Criminal Justice Committee in the Florida State Legislature.
“People returning home from prison or jail face many obstacles to starting a new life and becoming productive, law-abiding citizens,” Assemblyman Aubry said. “Partnerships between state governments and organizations focused on reentry needs of prisoners can help support this transition, improving not only the lives of people returning home from jail or prison, but also the lives of their friends and families, and the safety of their communities and neighborhoods.”
“Community and faith-based organizations have a wealth of experience addressing the safe and successful return of people released from prison or jail, such as helping them find employment, housing, and substance abuse treatment,” Senator Wise said. “The Justice Center’s meeting was an important step toward creating a policy guide that will address recidivism and encourage partnerships between these organizations and state governments.”
The Justice Center will use the group’s input to develop a policy guide that will provide recommendations for state governments to improve and expand collaborative efforts with community and faith-based organizations. The guide will also highlight several existing partnerships that are successfully addressing the needs of people released from prisons and jails.
For more information about the Justice Center's work to facilitate successful
reentry partnerships between state governments and community and faith-based organizations,
please download the full project description
on the Reentry Policy Council website.
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JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PROJECT UPDATE:
State and Local Leaders Kick Off New Communities Initiative in Wichita, KS
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, and Sedgwick County Commissioner Dave Unruh joined with other state and local leaders on July 12 to publicly launch the New Communities Initiative (NCI). The goal of this initiative is to integrate state, county, city, and private resources to increase public safety and improve the quality of life in the central northeast area of Wichita.
Focusing initially on the central northeast area of Wichita, state and local leaders — including seven state cabinet secretaries, two city council members, the mayor, and the county manager — are collaborating with private sector leaders to increase public safety, redevelop the neighborhood’s housing stock, integrate and improve the delivery of services to support families, and expand employment opportunities for neighborhood residents. To achieve these goals, local and state officials are analyzing data and talking with residents about these issues, identifying which programs and resources currently overlap in particular neighborhoods and reallocating resources more effectively if need be. Although the initiative is just starting, state and local corrections agencies have already pooled resources to hire youth to work on neighborhood clean-up efforts over the summer, and county and city staff are working together to develop a detailed list of tax-delinquent and abandoned property in the area to redevelop.
The efforts underway in Wichita are one component in Kansas’ Justice Reinvestment strategy, which aims
to reduce spending on corrections, increase public safety, and improve conditions in the communities to
which most people released from prison return. The Council of State Governments Justice Center provides
technical assistance to Kansas policymakers with the support of the Bureau of Justice Assistance,
U.S. Department of Justice, The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project,
and the Open Society Institute.
For more information on the NCI, please visit the Justice Center’s Justice Reinvestment project website
or view a presentation
by the City of Wichita.
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Announcements
Call for Presenters: National Correctional Industries Association Annual Training ConferenceThe National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA) is seeking workshop proposals for its annual training conference, which will be held March 9-12, 2008 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Approximately 500 correctional industries practitioners and commercial vendors are expected to attend. The conference will feature 90-minute workshops covering several topic areas, including prison and jail reentry and jail work programs.
For more information about the NCIA conference and submission requirements for workshop proposals,
click here.
Upcoming Events
Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
August 9, 2007
Minneapolis, MN
Click here
to register by August 2, 2007.
Global Justice Information Sharing Users' Conference
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance
August 21-23, 2007
Chicago, IL
Click here
to register.
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Funding Opportunities
Substance Abuse Prevention and Prisoner Reentry ProgramThe Prevention and Prisoner Reentry Program, sponsored by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), will provide $50,000 to between 12 and 15 faith- and community-based organizations with existing reentry programs to facilitate capacity-building and collaboration with other crime prevention efforts.
The CSAP Prevention and Prisoner Reentry Program was designed to achieve three goals:
- to establish and strengthen collaborations between faith and community-based organizations and federal, state, and local governments in order to prevent and reduce substance abuse and crime
- to reduce substance abuse among youth and adults by addressing the factors in a community that increase the risk of substance abuse and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse
- to reduce recidivism rates of people released from prisons and jails by providing services, resources, and opportunities that will facilitate a successful transition into the community
Application Deadline: August 10, 2007 (Letter of Intent); September 4, 2007 (Proposal)
For more information on this funding opportunity and its eligibility requirements,
click here.
Juvenile Sex Offender Treatment Program Development and Capacity Building
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice, in conjunction with the Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) Office, seeks applications for funding under the FY 2007 Juvenile Sex Offender Treatment Program Development and Capacity Building Program.
The purpose of the solicitation is to provide support to applicants to develop or build capacity of residential treatment programs for juvenile sex offenders, in particular regarding reentry programming. Priority will be given to applications that propose evidence-based strategies. It is anticipated that awards will range from $500,000 to $1 million for a period of 24 months.
Application Deadline: August 9, 2007
For more information on this funding opportunity and its eligibility requirements,
click here.
New York City Justice Corps
The City University of New York through John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in consultation with the New York City Department of Correction and the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity, is pleased to announce a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking an organization to develop, implement, and manage the New York City Justice Corps, a civic justice corps project serving New York City youth living in three target areas who are returning from jail or prison or serving probation sentences.
The goal of the NYC Justice Corps is to reduce poverty and recidivism among youth ages 16-24 involved in the criminal justice system. Working in conjunction with groups based in three target areas, the NYC Justice Corps will place participants in paid transitional employment internships and community service projects in their home communities for six months and provide youth with mentoring, case management, and job placement and retention services.
For more information about this funding opportunity and to obtain the RFP, click here.
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Recent Media Coverage of Reentry Issues
Two federal judges took a major step toward solving California’s prison overcrowding crisis by issuing orders recently to create a three-judge court that will be charged with reducing the number of people housed in state correctional facilities.
Hundreds of thousands of people are released from prisons and jails and re-enter their communities each year. They've served their time, but their conviction bars them from many jobs, state and federal aid, and some types of housing. Policymakers are beginning to consider whether the hodgepodge of state laws and regulations are protecting the public or creating an underclass of people who, after serving their sentence, cannot succeed in society.
The significant controversy surrounding juvenile sex offenders isn't whether there is a problem; it's how to address it. When is parental or therapeutic intervention enough? What kind of therapy works best? And at what point should the judicial system get involved, and in what ways?
During the recent summer session, nine Ohio University sociology and criminology majors formed a class with a group of people imprisoned in Nelsonville's Hocking Correctional Facility. The class, which was offered through the university as part of the national Inside-Out Exchange Program, gave students an opportunity to discuss and develop community building strategies and alternative justice models.
Click here
to see more reentry news collected by the Reentry Policy Council.
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Recent Publications on Reentry Issues
- Children, Families, and the Criminal Justice System: What We Know Now (University of Illinois at Chicago)
- Motivating Offenders to Change: A Guide for Probation and Parole (National Institute of Corrections)
- Transitional Jobs: Overcoming Barriers to Employment (University of Chicago)
- Barriers to Reentry?: The Labor Market for Released Prisoners in Post-Industrial America (Russell Sage Foundation)
To suggest additional resources for inclusion in the RPC newsletter, please email editors@reentrypolicy.org.
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In this Issue
- CSG Justice Center Convenes Meeting of State and Community Leaders to Foster Re-Entry Partnerships
- Justice Reinvestment: State and Local Leaders Kick Off New Communities Initiative in Wichita, KS
- Announcements & Events
- Funding Opportunities
- Recent Media Coverage of Re-Entry Issues
- Recent Publications on Re-Entry Issues
Our Publications
This publication discusses how policymakers can increase accountability among people who commit crimes, improve rates of child support collection and victim restitution, and make people’s transition from prisons and jails to the community safe and successful.