Prison Reentry Effort a Start

If nothing else, give state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, and state Rep. Ari Porth, D-Coral Springs, credit for persistence. It took two legislative sessions, but the pair managed to pass a bill creating a re-entry program for non-violent drug offenders. The legislation survived opposition from the tough-on-crime crowd and deserves Gov. Rick Scott’s signature, the final step toward becoming law.

The bill requires the Florida Department of Corrections to develop and administer a program to divert nonviolent offenders from state facilities. The goal is to shorten prison sentences by offering community based sustance abuse treatment and educational programs. Doing so pairs punishment with a greater shot at rehabilitation and reducing recividism. The end results are, potentially, a functional ex-inmate and significant prison budget savings.

Florida’s prison population is one of the nation’s highest. Unlike a majority of states surveyed in a 2010 Pew Center of the States report, the number of Florida inmates is increasing. State lawmakers have grappled with ways to lower the prison population and reduce incarceration costs, including the ill-fated privatization effort that would have turned state facilities in the southern half of Florida over to private firms.

To put it simply, it’s cheaper to treat specific nonviolent offenders in community treatment programs than behind the bars of a state peniteniary. Under the bill approved by the Legislature, inmates who have served at least half of their original sentence would become eligible for the re-entry program. The department estimates 337 inmates would be eligible in the first year of the new program.

The revamped re-entry program is essential. It’s the first of many needed steps state and local authorities must take if Florida hopes to establish a consistent system to turn ex-offenders into productive citizens once they leave prison.

Florida’s lawmakers are responsible, too, for spinning the costly revolving door of prison recividism. Budget shortfalls have prompted Gov. Scott and lawmakers to take a knife to many worthwhile health and social service programs, including some that help ex-offenders embark on leading productive lives outside of prison.

Unfortunately, the legislation requires DOC to operate the new program with available resources, a challenge to say the least. Currently, DOC is shedding roughly 1,800 jobs under the new state budget, which starts July 1. Amid those kinds of cuts in programs and personnel, chances for a viable re-entry program remain iffy at best.

Ex-offenders need structured support — along with places to live and jobs — to make successful transitions and avoid a return to prison life. It benefits taxpayers to develop programs that help ex-offenders overcome the addictions that landed them in prison, as well as the stigmas, and government sanctions, that come with a criminal record.

The new re-entry effort is a start. It must be have the support of far greater resources than appear accessible now if this effort is to succeed.

Reprinted with permission from the Sun Sentinel.

Following is the main text of the Keynote Address by President Travis, kicking off the 2/4/2011 University Faculty Senate Conference on “Higher Education in the Prisons.” The thrust of his speech is clearly that public higher education can play an indispensable role promoting successful prisoner reentry back into society, with attendant significant reductions in recidivism.

Let’s begin by recognizing an uncomfortable reality: The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its people than any other nation in the world. A few years ago we surpassed Russia and South Africa to achieve this distinction. Today, there are 2.3 million people held in our country’s prisons and jails. Our rate of incarceration – including BOTH prisons and jails – is 750 out of 100,000 residents. We should compare ourselves to European countries, where the rate of incarceration is much lower. For example, in Germany the rate is 93, in Turkey it is 112, and in Italy and Denmark it is a record low of 67 per 100,000 residents.¹⁷ The high level of imprisonment in America has prompted scholars to observe that we live in an “era of mass incarceration.”⁹

It has not always been so, in our country. For roughly a forty-year period, from 1930 to 1970, the rate of incarceration in America’s prisons was stable and low — about 110 per 100,000,² compared to 502 per 100,000 today, revealing a nearly five-fold increase over four decades.¹⁹ Beginning in 1972, our rate of incarceration started to increase, and has gone up every year since. During times of economic expansion and times of recession; during times of war and times of peace; when the crime rate has been rising and when it has been falling, we have increased our rate of incarceration. Recent data suggest that the level of imprisonment has stabilized in our country, and several states, including New York, have seen modest declines in their prison populations. Perhaps the current fiscal crisis will force states to rethink our punishment policies, but we have a long ways to go to bring our incarceration rates into line with the rest of the world.

Today is not the day to discuss in detail the reasons we have increasingly chosen to use prison as our preferred response to crime. Rather we should focus our attention on the inescapable fact that millions of Americans are cut off from their families and communities, living the regimented lives of this “total institution,”¹⁰ removed from the natural rhythms of life in free society such as working, raising families, building social capital, voting, and experiencing directly the joys and challenges of intimate relationships. In particular, today we are focused on the fact that incarcerated individuals are denied access to the educational opportunities available to their counterparts in free society.

The Iron Law of Corrections
Before addressing this topic directly, I should tell you that I have a particular perspective on the realities of mass incarceration in America. I find it useful to focus on what I have termed “the iron law of corrections:”¹⁸ With the exception of those who die during incarceration, either of natural causes or by execution, everyone we put into prison comes home. This year, over 700,000 people will leave our country’s prisons; another 9 million will leave our jails. This perspective – which I call a “reentry framework” – forces us to ask a very pragmatic question: if everyone who is sent to prison comes home, how should these people be prepared for this inevitable journey, and how should our public and private community-based resources be organized to improve the chances of a successful reintegration?

Allow me to use this reentry framework to define the challenge we are discussing at this conference: “If over 700,000 people are leaving our prisons, how should the nation’s educational institutions be organized to help them make a successful transition to free society?” Stated somewhat differently: “If we have reason to believe that educational opportunities, both inside prison and in the community, can improve reentry outcomes – by reducing recidivism, enhancing human capital, improving family functioning, and connecting returning prisoners to career opportunities – how would we make that happen?”

But I get ahead of myself. Let’s first focus on the educational profile of the people in prison, the educational opportunities provided them, and the research on the effectiveness of educational programs in changing the post-prison trajectory. I will not be discussing jails but focus on prisons because jails are characterized by short stays and high turnover and consequently present quite different challenges to the successful implementation of educational programs.

When Justice Kennedy delivered his famous speech about the “hidden world of punishment” in 2003, he said to his audience that once we enter this world, “we should be startled by what we see.” He catalogued the inexorable growth of the prison population, the inhumane conditions, the enormous costs, and reached this conclusion: “Our resources are misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences too long.”¹³ In a very poignant moment, he reminded his audience, in words that resonate at this conference today, “the more than 2 million inmates in the United States are human beings whose minds and spirits we must try to reach.”

The Most Educationally Disadvantaged Population
How can we describe these individuals in language that speaks of their minds and spirits, in terms of their educational potential? We know that the prison population, as a general matter, has low levels of educational attainment, and a high level of educational challenges. Nearly two in five (39%) fall below the literacy level, compared to one in five in the general population. According to a 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 17 percent of incarcerated individuals report a learning disability, compared to 6 percent of the general population.¹¹

Interestingly, the achievement gap narrows when considering high school completion. Two-thirds (65%) have high school diplomas or GEDs, compared to 82% of the general population. Yet in terms of higher education, the disparities are striking: only 17 percent have any post-secondary education, compared to 51 percent of the general population.⁵ In a study conducted for the Department of Education in 2004, researchers began their report by stating that “the most educationally disadvantaged population in the United States resides in our nation’s prisons.”¹⁴

On one level, we should not be surprised by these statistics: in virtually every measure of socio-economic well-being, including work history, health, prior victimization and family functioning, incarcerated individuals fare poorly. But the important question we face is whether, while they
are incarcerated and particularly as they return home, the period of time in prison is spent wisely, and these deficits are addressed. This question brings us to another stark realization about incarceration in America, namely the paucity of services available to those we have sentenced to be behind bars.

Interestingly, most prisons – federal and state – offer educational programs. According to a 2008 survey by James Stephan, virtually all (98%) federal prisons offer adult basic education, adult secondary education, post-secondary education or vocational training. Even most state prisons (84%) offer some sort of correctional education, although the lowest percentage (32%) offer post-secondary education, whereas two-thirds (66%) offer adult basic education and three-quarters (76%) offer adult secondary education.⁵

But the relevant question is not whether these programs are offered, rather whether incarcerated individuals participate in the programs. For example, although adult basic education is offered in almost all federal prisons, and two-thirds of state prisons, only two percent of the inmates have participated in these programs since their admission to prison. And, as our prisons have expanded, the level of participation in educational programs has decreased, with the largest declines found in vocational training (5 percentage points) and adult secondary education (4 percentage points).⁵ A final observation: these data tell us nothing about the quality of these programs, the persistence in participation, and the match or mismatch between educational needs and educational offerings. Clearly there is a compelling research agenda here that would shed light on these important issues.

The history of support for post-secondary education in prisons in America is marked by a cataclysmic event. In 1994, as one of the provisions of the 1994 Crime Act, Congress decided to withdraw federal support – through the Pell grant program – for students incarcerated in state and federal prisons. The results were dramatic. In the year following the ban, the number of inmates receiving post-secondary education dropped by 44 percent.¹⁶ In New York State, this sharp shift in federal policy had a devastating effect. Before 1994, there were 70 post-secondary prison programs in New York State, a majority provided by CUNY and SUNY. As of April 2008, only 8 programs remained and all were offered exclusively by private colleges.⁷

It is worth noting that, notwithstanding the withdrawal of federal support for post-secondary education, the federal government continues to make substantial investments in education within our prisons. Through the Workforce Investment Act, the federal government invests in adult basic and secondary education, English literacy classes, and special education. One percent of all funding under the Perkins program for vocational and applied technology education may be spent on correctional programs. Funding is available for youth as old as 21 under the elementary and secondary education grant, and for youth with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.⁶ So the Congress singled out post-secondary education for the federal ban, while continuing to invest in other forms of education. I will return to this political reality at the end of my talk.

Links between Programs, Recidivism and Criminal Costs
Now that we have documented the extensive need for education, and the mismatch between educational programs and need, particularly for post-secondary education programs, we should next ask whether these programs are effective. The public and our elected officials would likely use a very direct measure of effectiveness: “Is there reliable evidence that investing in education while someone is in prison reduces their risk of re-offending once they return home?” When our Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College convened a meeting of the Reentry Roundtable to discuss the issues of correctional education, we commissioned a paper by Dr. Gerald Gaes, one of the nation’s preeminent corrections researchers. He reviewed four meta-analyses and found that participation in educational programs was associated with reductions in recidivism ranging from 7 percent to 46 percent.⁸ Another analysis by Aos, Miller and Drake (2006)¹ answered the obvious follow-up question: are these programs cost-effective? They found that an investment of $1,182 in vocational training can save $6,806 in future criminal justice costs. Even more impressive, an investment of $962 in academic education can save $5,306 in future criminal justice costs.

I should quickly note the narrowness of this measure of effectiveness. We certainly do not evaluate the effectiveness of college programs outside prisons by determining whether they reduce recidivism. But more importantly, when assessing prison-based educational programs, surely we would have more robust measures, as we do for educational programs outside the walls. Following the guidance of the AAC&U, we would ask: Do they develop skills of critical thinking? Effective oral communication? Clear writing? Moral reasoning? An ability to work in teams? Respect for diversity? Similarly, we would hope that educational programs would directly address the cognitive issues that are associated with criminal and antisocial behavior. Stated differently, if we can observe a reduction in recidivism, we need to develop a much better understanding of the intermediate mechanisms that produce those results, as well as the independent benefits that allow an individual to function at a higher level in our society.

The final building block of our portrait of education in prisons is an understanding of the connection between in-prison and after-prison education. As I mentioned earlier, I find it instructive to view the world through a reentry lens, which here would require that we ask what percentage of individuals leaving prison are connected with educational programs upon their return. Unfortunately, we have no data to answer this question. We do know, from the 2009 RTI-UI (Urban Institute) Multi-Site Evaluation study, that individuals about to leave prison place a high priority on securing an education when they return home. In fact, when asked to rank their needs, the highest number – 94% of the individuals surveyed – said they wanted an education, placing this need above other life-essential services such as, financial assistance (86%), a driver’s license (83%), job training (82%), and employment (80%).¹⁵ This is a remarkably strong showing of a demand for education … as well as personal statement of motivation to seek a better life.

We should ask ourselves whether we make it easy or difficult for people leaving prison to access our educational programs. A number of states around the country have shown the way. In New Mexico, for example, post-secondary education in that state’s prisons follows a standardized curriculum. This means that these programs articulate to an associate’s degree in general studies in the public universities. North Carolina has created a business advisory council to ensure that the vocational programs offered in the prisons prepare returning inmates for the jobs available in local economies. Here in New York State, the College Initiative works with people returning from prison to pave the way to the colleges of CUNY, and now many men and women benefit from this program each year. And the College and Community Fellowship, previously housed at the CUNY Graduate Center, provides support for formerly incarcerated CUNY students, mostly women. They have a stunning record of success: almost 70 percent of the CCF participants receive four-year degrees within four years of joining the program.

The Prison-to-College Pipeline Initiative
In my view, the connection between prison-based and community-based educational programs is one of the most exciting areas for possible innovation in the larger reentry movement. Pursuing an education may not be the top priority for everyone, but for a large percentage of people coming home from prison, a college experience can be a grounding experience, a way to connect with a community of motivated students and dedicated faculty who can provide guidance and support. Granted, there are still some federal restrictions on loans to students with drug convictions, but these students are eligible for other types of aid, so their education can be affordable. The challenge we face is how best to create the bridge between educational programs in prison and those in the community.

I am very proud of the work by my colleagues at John Jay College who have developed the Prison-to-College Pipeline initiative that will test a new way to create this connection. In the next panel, you will hear from Prof. Baz Dreisinger, who designed the program, Ali Knight, the Director of our Prisoner Reentry Institute, who will oversee implementation of the program, and Distinguished Lecturer Martin Horn, who has provided expert guidance based on his years as a correctional administrator. We plan to launch this program this fall and hope that it will provide a national model for linking a major public university with an innovative correctional administration, under the leadership of Commissioner Brian Fischer, to significantly improve educational and public safety outcomes.

Ideally, our community-based programs would be linked to a strong suite of prison-based programs, but we face the congressional ban on funding college-level programs. I think the time is right for a national re-examination of that ban. The enactment of the Second Chance Act of 2007 (signed into law in April of 2008) has demonstrated the strong bi-partisan support for federal leadership on ways that promote successful prisoner reentry. Granted, the effort to restore Pell Grants faces an uphill battle. At a time when funding for public universities is being cut back, and the tuition burden faced by our students is being increased, it will be very, very difficult to persuade Congress to restore Pell funding. But we must make this effort. We have many good arguments on our side. First, the amount of money in question is modest. When the Pell Grants for prisoners were eliminated in 1994, the funding for students in prison represented a small amount, $34 million representing less than 1/10 of 1 percent of all Pell grants, which totaled $5.3 billion.¹² Second, as noted above, the reductions in recidivism are significant, and the programs are cost-effective, so this investment of federal dollars would save money for states and localities. Yet we must face the reality that these arguments are not likely to carry the day.

But I think we can make a larger argument, and it is one that is made most persuasively by educators. We should be developing the argument that an education is necessary to prevent the marginalization of the millions of individuals who have spent time in prison and now have returned to society. These men and women have lost important years of their lives, years when many of their counterparts were securing an education, and progressing through the work world. We know that criminal activity is concentrated among young men drawn from the poorest communities of America’s cities. In these communities, time spent in prison is now a modal experience. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a young African-American man now has a one-in-three chance of serving at least a year in prison.⁴ In our poorest neighborhoods, upwards of seventy percent of the men have a felony record. Furthermore, we know that many people who leave prison return, after being rearrested or having their parole revoked.

But we know another important fact: at some point, these young men (and women) age out of crime. At some point in their lives, the probability that they will be re-arrested is no greater than the probability of arrest among the general population.³ So, as a society, as we live with the consequences of the massive buildup of our prison population, we face the long-term costs of that policy choice. One of the most profound costs is the creation of a marginalized population in our country, one that is cut off from the benefits of the welfare state, forbidden from working in vast sectors of our economy, denied the right to vote (at least for the period of parole in most states, for life in some states), facing the stigma of a felony record, and living with the consequences of their actions in terms of tensions and exclusions within their families and peer networks.

Ironically, one of the last areas of our society where their individual contributions can still be judged on the merits, where their motivations can lead in unimpeded pathways to success, where they can perhaps turn their experiences into positive material for expression and analysis, is the system of public higher education. Public higher education can play an indispensable role in countering the forces in our society that are leading to the marginalization of millions. Educators, including this audience, believe firmly in the power of a college education to transform lives, unlock human potential, provide a ladder to the middle class, foster notions of citizenship and promote individual responsibility. Do we not hold these very same aspirations for people returning to their communities who need to make a fresh start? If so, it behooves our community of educators who are so resolute in their commitment of promoting public education to advocate for educational opportunities benefitting people in prison.

So, in closing, let me call upon my colleagues who work in higher education and my CUNY colleagues in particular, to think of this conference as an organizing opportunity. There is so much we can do. We should be asking ourselves: What can our institutions do to restore education to our prison systems? We should elevate the notion that an education can serve as a pathway to successful reintegration. We should be challenging our research colleagues to design evaluations of educational programs inside and outside prisons. We should bring our expertise in outcome assessments to the task of understanding the effectiveness of prison-based courses. We should work with our admissions officers to make sure that we do not blindly block access to our colleges merely because someone has a felony record. We should work with our student development officers to help them understand that the jarring experience of leaving prison and returning home may require a distinctive support system for students who have been incarcerated. We should encourage our students to engage with the difficult issues posed by the era of mass incarceration in America, so that we better understand the origins and manifestations of this desire to punish so many people by locking them away, knowing they will all return to live with us again.

We have so much work to do, but today’s conference can represent a turning point in our history of imprisonment.

About the Author
Jeremy Travis is president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. Prior to his appointment, he served as a Senior Fellow in the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, where he launched a national research program focused on prisoner reentry into society. From 1994-2000, Travis directed the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to his service in Washington, he was Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters for the New York City Police Department (1990-1994), a Special Advisor to New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch (1986-89), and Special Counsel to the Police Commissioner of the NYPD (1984-86). Before joining city government, Travis spent a year as a law clerk to then-U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He began his career in criminal justice working as a legal services assistant for the Legal Aid Society, New York’s indigent defense agency. He has taught courses on criminal justice, public policy, history and law at Yale College, the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York Law School and George Washington University. He has a J.D. from the New York University School of Law, an M.P.A. from the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and a B.A. in American Studies from Yale College. He is the author of But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry (Urban Institute Press, 2005), co-editor (with Christy Visher) of Prisoner Reentry and Crime in America (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and co-editor (with Michelle Waul) of Prisoners Once Removed: The Impact of Incarceration and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities (Urban Institute Press, 2003). He has published numerous book chapters, articles and monographs on constitutional law, criminal law and criminal justice policy.

References
1. Aos, S., Miller, M., Drake, E. 2006. Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Future Prison Construction, Criminal Justice Costs, and Crime Rates. Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.

2. Blumstein, A., Cohen. J. (1973). A theory of the stability of punishment. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 64 (2), 198-207.

3. Blumstein, A., Nakamura, K. (2009) Redemption in the Presence of Widespread Criminal Background Checks. Criminology, 47 (2), 10-17.

4. Bonczar, T. Beck, A.J. (2003). Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice; Office of Justice Programs; Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, p.1
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5. Brazzell, D., Crayton, A., Mukamal, D.A., Solomon, A.L., and Lindahl, N. (2009). From the Classroom to the Community: Exploring the Role of Education During Incarceration and Reentry. Washington, DC: Urban Institute, p..9,11,13.

6. Crayton, A., Neusteter, S.R. (2008). The Current State of Correctional Education. Paper presented at the Reentry Roundtable on Education, John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, March 31.

7. Dreisinger, B., Travis, J. (2010). New York State Prison-to-College Pipeline: Proposal for Multi-Year Higher Education Partnership between The City University of New York and the New York State Departement of Correctional Services.

8. Gaes, G. G. 2008. The Impact of Prison Education Programs on Post-Release Outcomes. Paper presented at the Reentry Roundtable on Education, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, March 31.

9. Garland, D. (2001). Mass Imprisonment: Social causes and consequences. London: Thousand Oaks, p.1.

10. Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. New York: Doubleday Anchor.

11. Greenberg, E., Dunleavy, E., Kutner, M. (2007). Literacy behind Bars: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Prison Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.

12. Karpowitz, D., Kenner, M. (2001). Education as Crime Prevention: The Case for Reinstating Pell Grant Eligibility for the Incarcerated. New York. Retrieved from the World Wide Weg on February 3, 2011: http://www.bard.edu/bpi/images/crime_report.pdf.

13. Kennedy, A. M. (2003). Speech at the American Bar Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, August 9. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on February 3, 2011: http://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/speeches/viewspeeches.aspx?Filename=sp_08-09-03.html.

14. Klein, S., Tolbert, M., Bugarin, R., Cataldi, E.F., Tauschek, G. (2004). Correctional Education: Assessing the status of prison programs and information needs. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, p.1.

15. Lattimore, P. K., Visher, C. (2009). Multi-Site Evaluation of SVORI: Summary and Synthesis. Raleigh, NC: RTI International.

16. Tewksbury, R., Erickson, D. J., Taylor, J. M. (2000). Opportunities Lost: The consequences of eliminating Pell Grant eligibility for correctional education students. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 31 (1/2), 43-56.

17. The Pew Charitable Trust Center. (2008). 1 in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008. Available on the world wide web: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/8015PCTS_Prison08_FINAL_2-1-1_FORWEB.pdf.

18. Travis, J. (2005). But they all come back: Facing the challenges of prisoner reentry. Washington DC: The Urban Institute Press.

19. West, H. C., Sabol, W. J., Greenman, S. J. (2010). Prisoners in 2009. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice; Office of Justice Programs; Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin.

“Of course, money alone can’t solve the complex and widespread challenges facing our communities. To succeed in reducing violent crime, there are several key steps we must take.

First, we must call attention, not only to the symptoms, but also to the sources of violence. Robust enforcement efforts must incorporate a focus on prevention and an effort to understand the root causes of violent crime. Specifically, this means our work must expand beyond arrests and prosecutions. Although PSN has helped to secure many important convictions, it’s also shown that we can’t simply arrest our way out of the problem of violent crime. Of course, incarceration is necessary for public safety. But it’s only partially responsible for the declining crime rates we’ve seen. It’s not a sole, economically sustainable, solution.

Over the last few decades, state spending on corrections has risen faster than nearly any other budget item. Yet, at a cost of $60 billion a year, our prisons and jails do little to prepare prisoners to get jobs and “go straight” after they’re released. People who have been incarcerated are often barred from housing, shunned by potential employers and surrounded by others in similar circumstances. This is a recipe for high recidivism. And it’s the reason that two-thirds of those released are rearrested within three years. It’s time for a new approach.

As so many of you have pointed out, any real effort to contain spending on corrections, while ensuring public safety, must include a strong focus on preparing for reentry. Effective reentry programs provide our best chance for safeguarding our neighborhoods and supporting people who have served their time and are also resolved to improve their lives.

I’m proud that, last year, the Justice Department distributed $28 million in reentry awards under the Second Chance Act. And I’m pleased that we have another $100 million available for reentry programs this year. But we must complement reentry programs with smart and sound policy changes at every level of government.

That’s why I established a Sentencing and Corrections Working Group – to take a fresh look at federal sentencing practices and determine how we can better prepare federal prisoners to transition back into their communities. I am also convening an interagency working group to focus exclusively on reentry issues – everything from housing and job training needs to policy recommendations – and to enhance coordination at the federal level. But we also need more information about state and local crime trends, corrections policies, and neighborhood challenges – the insights many of you can provide.

Second, we must address the problem of violent crime holistically – by building on existing partnerships and bringing in different perspectives. Federal prosecutors must become neighborhood problem solvers, not simply case processors. They must partner with all levels of law enforcement and with all sorts of community partners. Just as surely as U.S. Attorneys, law enforcement officials and leaders across the Justice Department must come together, we must also include more community leaders, teachers, coaches, principals and – above all – parents in our work.

Finally, we must meet this problem with all the resources that sound science can bring to bear. Restoring scientific decision-making at the Justice Department is one of my highest priorities. And while research has told us much about the incidence and impact of violence, it hasn’t yet told us everything. We need more information about what works – and what doesn’t – so that we can make informed funding decisions and identify community-specific strategies.

As we take these steps and work to implement the solutions we need, there is – I believe – good cause for optimism. In fact, being with all of you today, in this great city, fills me with a sense of hope and excitement – excitement from the success you’ve achieved through Project Safe Neighborhoods, and hope for continued progress toward the goal we all share: safe, vibrant and productive communities.”

Click here to link to the entire speech transcript on the Department of Justice website.

Goodwill® and Prison Fellowship will work together to engage their respective staff members nationwide and encourage local community partners — including businesses, social agencies, nonprofits and faith-based organizations — to assist with the efforts.

“Goodwill has demonstrated excellence in its services and programs that connect people from all backgrounds to achieve economic and social success,” said Jim Gibbons, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International. “The partnership with Prison Fellowship will help ensure that people with a criminal history have the tools they need to become productive and independent members of society so that they can support themselves and their families.”

“The goal of the Prison Fellowship-Goodwill collaboration is to provide greater opportunity for ex-prisoners, their families and the systems that support them. These skills will help ex-prisoners succeed on the outside and increase the likelihood they will stay out-making communities safer for all of us,” said Curt Kemp, chief operating officer for Prison Fellowship. “The partnership will include vocational training, life skills, education and other comprehensive services.”

The agreement between Goodwill Industries International and the Prison Fellowship will enhance the dignity and quality of life for those people with a criminal background and allow them to rejoin the community successfully.

The following exerpts were extracted from the report’s “Preface:”

In the United States, where policies have a global outreach for economic (market size), financial, political and cultural reasons (its condition as the superpower and the reach of its cultural production, mostly audiovisual), priorities are also changing. The idea of a war led by a “drug czar” is being abandoned for a more balanced approach.

Secretary of Strate Clinton has stressed several times the idea of shared responsibility, and the new drug “czar” for the Obama administration, Gil Kerlikowske, in his speech to the 53rd meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March 2010, presented his assessment: “The results from long-standing initiatives, such as drug courts, and newer alternatives to incarceration including ’smart’ programs which incorporate swift, certain, but modest sanctions, have been extremely encouraging. We must now expand such initiatives so all those for whom diversion from prison is appropriate, can participate. These innovative programs break the cycle of drug use, arrest, release and re-arrest and are much more cost-effective than long-term incarceration.”

After decades of an approach that favored repression as its main component and that prevailed in many countries, it has become clear that it is an oversimplification. Even if it did not totally disregard the public health aspects of drug dependence, it emphasized the criminal aspect of drug use without attenton to te public health aspect and treatment needs, resulting in the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of non-violent people all over the world; and, worse, with no indication whatsoever of any improvement in chemically- and psychologically-dependent people, and no evidence that the roots of the phenomenon were being addressed. In addition, in those countries in which the prision system has been partially privatized, there is a strong economic motive behind sending people to jail.

Drug courts, or drug treatment courts, the first practice of which started in Florida over 20 years ago, in 1989, represent thus an alternative to incarceration with advantages in critical aspects.

First, they foster the committment of addicts to work on getting rid of their dependence; second, the approach avoids incarceration of drug users who participate in these programs and comply with program requirements, and could, depending on the legislation, be applied to petty, non-violent drug dealers, which would avoid their making contacts inside the prison system that often increase the tendency of first offenders to become more deeply involved in illegal activities, as they meet hardened criminals who no longer harbor any hope of being recovered as law-abiding citizens; third, it avoids or reduces the stigma of danger and unreliability often associated with incarcerated people, thus helping reinsertion and recovery; fourth–and this is also becoming more and more critical–it helps reduce the spiralling rise in costs that countries bear to imprison a large portion of their population, sometimes hopeless and helpless poor youngsters, whose possibilities of a decent life decline even more as they are sent to prison.

Statistics vary from country to country, but certain features are common: many prison systems are bordering on bankruptcy; a vast majority of those in jail come from groups that are economically and socially vulnerable; a large portion of all those incarcerated are in prison for non-violent drug-related crimes.

The following exerpts were extracted from the report’s “Forward:”

Because drug abuse is compulsive, it does not stop at the prison door. In a 2009 survey of prisoners conducted by the Scottish Prison Service, 22% of prisoners reported that they had used drugs in prison in the month prior to the survey.

Treatment alternatives to incarceration for drug-dependent offenders involve diverting substance-abusing offenders from prison and jail into treatment and rehabilitation under judicial supervision. By increasing direct supervision of offenders, coordinating public resources, and expediting case processing, treatment alternatives to incarceration can help break the cycle of criminal behavior, alcohol and drug use, and imprisonment.

The details of these alternative mechanisms vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but most involve suspension of the sentence provided the offender agrees voluntarily to participate in a drug treatment program. The judge in the case supervises the offender’s progress in treatment, with the assistance of the prosecutor, social workers (case officers), treatment providers and probation officers. The judge has the power to end the treatment program if the offender violates its terms and conditions, in which case, the sentence will be handed down and the offender will be incarcerated.

The following exerpts were extracted from the main body of Volume I:

With this backdrop, the present publication is designed to begin to fill a critical information gap by providing a preliminary base of information regarding the experience of developing DTCs in various
countries that have embarked on these initiatives and the impact and benefits which these programs have had. Although much still needs to be done, the information compiled from the 12 countries responding to the SE/CICAD survey presents a cogent argument about why DTCs are a good idea, and gives a snapshot of what they cost in terms of human and other resources, what savings they can create for their respective
societies in economic as well as human terms, and what benefits can accrue, particularly in terms of public safety and community wellbeing.

The organization of Volume One of the report mirrors the questions on the CICAD survey instrument, with an introductory section (PartOne) providing a synopsis of the survey responses in key topic areas, followed by a compilation in Part Two of the survey responses to each question from each of the responding countries, including information on the costs and resources that have been necessary to set up and operate DTCs in the responding countries and the impact noted.

The extracted table below shows the enrollment of offenders in the DTC’s of the 12 participating countries:

The first publication will be followed by a second one, building on the summary information compiled during the course of preparing the current one. The overarching goal of this second publication will be to draft a series of Best Practices and Recommendations based on a more in-depth and scientifically based approach. This second report will therefore not only inform on the concept of DTCs, but will also address the questions of how to improve their efficiency, how to validate their effectiveness and how best to
incorporate them in the criminal justice system of the various countries that have already established such a scheme or are planning to do so in the near future.

The following excerpts were extracted from a section on Preliminary Findings:

All respondents with available data reported reduced recidivism rates among participants in the DTC compared to offenders processed in the traditional criminal justice system. Ireland reported figures from two small random assignment studies that showed 75% and 85% reductions in recidivism. Some respondents had comparison figures for the costs for handling offenders in the DTC, compared with the costs in the traditional adjudication process, and reported much lower costs for DTC participants compared to those in the traditional system. Evaluation reports for U.S. DTCs have estimated savings ranging from $3,000 to $20,000 per drug court participant, based on avoided costs of incarceration.

Another notable benefit of DTC participation, besides cost savings, has been the effect of DTC programs on the community. Reductions in recidivism and substance abuse can remove stresses on community services like police and hospital services. Respondents also noted the creation of safer communities resulting from reduced crime. Some also noted that DTC participants gain a chance to be productive
members of their communities and, as a result of their increased self-esteem and improved physical health, are better able to find jobs, reconnect with family and friends, and take greater responsibility for their own lives.

The following excerpt was extracted from one of Volume II’s numerous tables that detail survey results for dozens of summaries (by country) of the impact of DTC’s on recidivism rates, cost effectiveness and community benefits. The U.S. response chosen, because of superior success, was for a January 2009 Rutland County, Vermont evaluation of the cost benefits derived from the drug court in that jurisdiction.

“Program investment cost was $19,405 per drug court participant; cost due to recidivism (rearrests, new court cases, probation, incarceration and victimizations) over 3 years was $48,277 per drug court participant vs.$64,251 per comparison group member, with savings of $15,977 per participant.

Total criminal justice system cost per participant during the program is $5,809 less thn traditional court processing ($9,749 if victimizations are included).

If the program continues to enroll a cohort of 26 new participants annually, savings per participants over 3 years will be $138,441 per cohort; after 5 years, the accumulated savings will be over $2,000,000.

Summary: $ criminal justice system cost savings of $15,977. Criminal justice system costs 59% less during program participation compared with costs for nondrug court participants. Projected 150% return on investment after 5 years; projected 300% return on investment after 10 years.

In conclusion, should Slammer readers wish to review either volume of the American University report, the following link will take them to the PDF versions:

LINK to Multinational Report (Click here)

Authorship of this effort is attributed to the Justice Programs Office, School of Public Affairs, American University, Washington, D.C., by Caroline S. Cooper, Research Professor and Director of the Justice Programs Office, and graduate research assistants Brent Franklin and Tiffany Mease.

This publication was drafted by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), Secretariat for Multidimensional Security of the Organization of American States (OAS); the Justice Programs Office, School of Public Affairs, American University; the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), Universiteit Gent; the Ministerio Público of Chile (General Prosecutor’s Office); and the International Association of Drug Treatment Courts (IADTC). It was developed in the framework of the EU-LAC Drug Treatment City Partnerships, an initiative coordinated by CICAD/SMS/OAS and funded by the European Commission. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the position of the EU or the OAS.

Establishing Drug Treatment Courts: Strategies, Experiences
and Preliminary Outcomes
ISBN 978-0-8270-5448-6

The vast majority of inmates, prison cells are not their permanent address. Most prisoners will serve their sentences and then return back into our communities. What kind of neighbors will they be?

If current trends continue, over half of them will be rearrested and back in prison within three years. These high failure rates represent a threat to public safety and increased cost to taxpayers. With more than 735,000 men and women coming home from state and federal prisons each year, making sure they are ready to be peaceful, productive citizens is a critical public safety concern.

That’s why Prison Fellowship, the world’s largest outreach to prisoners and their families, launched the Out4Life campaign back in 2007. Out4Life is a holistic approach to prisoner reentry that harnesses the strengths of both government agencies and nonprofit organizations to help offenders make a successful reentry into society. Out4Life is neither a reentry program nor an event, but is rather a long-term campaign to develop coalitions that will be able to reduce recidivism across the country.

Out4Life kicks off in each state with a conference attended by local and state government officials and community leaders and organizations—both faith-based and secular. The main goal of the conferences is to build lasting, self-sustaining coalitions to provide reentry services to ex-prisoners. By coordinating services and programs, the coalitions make sure that all offenders’ needs are met, and that no resources are wasted through duplication. As the coalitions develop, Prison Fellowship provides information and resources to strengthen their work, and channels of communication to increase their cooperation.

The needs of released prisoners are overwhelming. A bus ticket and twenty dollars hardly suffice to get these men and women back on their feet. They must find housing, reliable transportation, jobs, medical care, education, and personal identification documents. Many need addiction and/or mental health treatment. Many need help reconnecting with their families and their children. And, many are trying to do all this with little grasp of the new technology that now saturates society.

Transitioning from prison to community is obviously more than just switching addresses. It’s also about crossing cultures. On the inside, men and women have very little control over their daily lives. But on the outside, they face a bewildering barrage of decisions about what to wear, what to eat, where to go, and how to spend their time. On the inside, being stoic and tough is often important to survival, but on the outside, offenders have to relearn social norms and manners that allow them to interact acceptably with others.

Out4Life unites the hands of government, nonprofit groups, and business in coalitions because the government alone cannot help offenders overcome these obstacles. Navigating the challenges of reentry requires a guide – a mentor who provides the counsel, accountability, and encouragement of an enduring, nurturing relationship in a supportive community. A study by Pennsylvania University of one of Prison Fellowship’s intensive reentry programs confirmed that having a mentor is the key factor in helping released prisoners avoid falling back into criminal behavior. Staff and volunteers from faith-based and nonprofit organizations are uniquely positioned to build these relationships of trust.

Out4Life draws together a broad range of community groups because the needs of returning prisoners are so numerous and diverse that no single organization can meet them all well. Teamwork helps ensure that no returning prisoner slips through the cracks.

In its early stages, the campaign is meeting with success in states across the country. Collaborating with the Department of Corrections and local groups, Prison Fellowship launched the first Out4Life initiative with a conference in Louisiana. This event has spawned five coalitions involving more than 300 organizations and agencies. Conferences have occurred during the past year in Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, and Minnesota, and more are planned for the coming months in Ohio, Virginia, Texas, and Oregon.

Leaders in these states have shared high praises for the Out4Life campaign. Larry Norris, Director of Arkansas’ Department of Corrections, believes that “successful prisoner reentry can only occur when government, business, faith and community leaders work together. The Out4Life conference is focused on developing ways we can all come together to make Arkansas communities safer.” And Gayle Ray, Tennessee’s DOC Commissioner, explained at the Out4Life conference in Tennessee that “groups like this – faith-based groups and other folks – can really be helpful in our efforts to lower recidivism even more.”

Lowering recidivism by helping men and women transform their lives is Out4Life’s mission. There is no simple solution to breaking the cycle of crime, but by relying on the strength of public-private partnerships we can make significant progress. The Out4Life campaign is self-explanatory, it hopes to help men and women make it out of prison cells for good – and permanently become contributing members of our communities.

Mark Earley, former State Senator and Attorney General of Virginia, became President of Prison Fellowship on February 1, 2002. As Presdent and CEO of Prison Fellowship, Earley oversees the national ministry founded by Charles Colson in 1976, which has since spread to 113 countries in addition to the United States.

For more information on Out4Life, visit here

For more information on Prison Fellowship, visit here

Over the past 20 years, various states started contracting with private companies to operate adult prisons. Florida joined in during the mid ’90’s when the state’s lawmakers, in direct opposition to public employee unions, followed advice from the private prison industry, and enacted supporting legislation. Four contracts for the construction and operation of private prisons were awarded in 1995.

Privatization was expected to operated at lower costs and to produce lower recidivism. While some cost savings have apparently been achieved, well over a decade of exerience has shown no evidence to substantiate that the state is getting the recidivism impact that it exected.

The statutes now on the books state that the private prisons must have programs “designed to reduce recidivism, and include opportunities to participate in such work programs as authorized ….” Although the private prisons are thus required to provide such services, the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy maintains that “the contracts and contract monitoring are focused on inputs (e.g. inmate program participation requirements) and do not include any provisions to ensure the desired outcomes of reduced recidivism.”

In one report that compared the recidivism rates of inmates from comparable public and private prisons, the FCFEP discovered that “no statistically significant differences in recidivism rates were found between public and private inmate groups ….” and that there was “…no empirical justification for the policy argument that pivate prisons reduce recidivism better than public prisons.”

For Full Report, and references cited, click here.

Since 1996, the study shows, the Sunshine state has added more than 20 new categories of financial obligations to those accused and convicted of a crime. The fees are levied even on those who have no money and cannot pay. Increasingly, the result is a self-perpetuating cycle of debt — and sometimes further incarceration — for those re-entering society after prison.

The new study shows that the Florida legislature increasingly relies on “user fees” paid by indigent defendants to finance not just the criminal justice system but other state operations as well.

“As unemployment hovers around 10 percent, it is time to consider whether heaping more debt on those unable to afford it is a sensible and moral approach to financing state functions,” said Rebekah Diller, author of The Hidden Costs of Florida’s Criminal Justice Fees. “For many reasons, this is simply bad public policy.”

The report also raises key questions about the efficiency of the practice. Many of these fees are uncollectible, leaving the court system underfunded. In some places, collection costs are borne partly by counties and court clerks, and the adjudication of fee payments incurs even more costs.

Among the findings:
1. The Florida Legislature has eliminated payment exemptions for the indigent, thus demanding revenue from a population unable to pay;

2. In Leon County, collection practices resulted in more than 800 arrests for failure to appear at debt hearings and more than 20,000 hours of jail time alone in one year.

3. Florida routinely suspends drivers’ licenses for failure to make payments, a practice that sets the debtor up for a vicious cycle of “driving with a suspended license” convictions;

4. Florida allows private debt collection firms to add up to a 40 percent surcharge on unpaid debt.

Among the recommendations:
1. The Legislature should exempt those unable to pay criminal justice fees from legal financial obligations;

2. Payment plans should be tailored to an individual’s ability to pay, as state law already requires;

3. Florida’s Supreme Court should adopt court rules to end the new debtors’ prison;

4. Counties can save money by eliminating debt-related arrests for failure to appear and resulting incarceration in already crowded jails.

Florida’s increasing reliance on fee revenue coincides with a rising concern about policies that affect massive numbers of Floridians with a criminal conviction. Florida has the third-largest prison population of any state. Nearly 90 percent of the more than 100,000 people currently in Florida’s state prisons will be released, and, if past trends persist, nearly one-third will be re-incarcerated for a new crime.

The report also offers longer-term reforms, such as reconsidering legal financial obligations in felony cases.

For more information, contact Susan Lehman at 212-998-6318 or susan.lehman@nyu.edu .

According to the Public Relations Director, “We want to get up to a staffing level that’s consistent with the number of inmates we have in the prison system.” While no one will actually be hired until July 1st, the DOC has already kicked off the process of finding the right people.

For more details, read the complete announcement according to a 3/09/10 report by KWQC.

According to a 3/7/10 article by Michael Lollar appearing in The Commercial Appeal, Tennessee’s DOC claims recidivism rates of 51 percent when studied for a three-year period; this compares to national studies that average 65 percent over the same time period. But the 20-year study by Correctional Counseling, Inc., a Memphis-based behavioral therapy firm, followed 1,381 inmates that first did time between 1987 and 1991. Their psychologists found that the recidivism rate numbers keep going up over time, and they’re higher because most other studies don’t count incarcerations after the three-year basis, nor do they count subsequent incarcerations that take place in other states, nor arrests followed by probation or parole in any locale.,

According to the 20-year study, which was designed to compare inmates that received “moral reconation therapy” versus inmates that received only standard counseling, 94 percent of the latter group had been rearrested and 82 percent of them wound up behind bars. For those getting the new therapy, 81 percent had been rearrested and 61 percent were re-incarcerated.

For full story, click here.