"Coming Home": Updated Resource Guide for Reentrants Released

The Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force & the Manhattan District Attorney's Office have updated and released their reentry resource guide for reentrants and their families, "Coming Home." The Guide includes information on over 60 providers offering services to individuals returning from prison in the following areas:

Staying Stress-Free – Mental Health Services
Living a Sober Life – Substance Abuse Services
Finding a Job – Employment Services
Building Skills – Educational Services
Living Strong – Health and Wellness Services
Knowing Your Rights– Legal Services
Coming Home – Housing Services
Connecting with Loved Ones – Family Services
Presenting Your Best Self – Clothing Services
Getting More Information – Online Resource Guides

You can access it regularly on this site under "Helpful Resources" or on the Center for Court Innovation's website.

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Federal Probation Agency begins media campaign targeting business sector

Via the Washington Post, "the federal agency [in D.C] tasked with supervising parolees as they reintegrate into the District has launched an aggressive media campaign that asks area business leaders to articulate what it will take for them to hire individuals with conviction histories." Read about it here.

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Police Officer and Parolee: Partners in Preventing Crime

As traditional approaches to reducing returns to prison among formerly incarcerated individuals continue to fail across the country, police departments have begun teaming up with community partners to employ untraditional, but effective crime prevention methods. A recent article published by USA Today, tells the story of one police officer's bargain with a former inmate- "Stay out of prison and I'll find you a job"-as part of Michigan's successful Prisoner Re-entry Initiative (MPRI). Since the introduction of MPRI four years ago, USA Today reports that the rates of ex-offenders sent back to prison have dropped from 55% to 38%.

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"But I bought that knife at Home Depot...."

As a former public defender who frequently represented individuals charged with illegal possession of a weapon, it was not uncommon for me to hear from a client: "But that knife can't be illegal, I bought it at Home Depot." I remember one case where a young man on parole with a job doing construction was arrested for a knife he swore he used only for his work. Although during the arraignment process I verified his job with his employer (he was, in fact, doing construction), the fact that he was rearrested was a sufficient basis for revocation of parole. Although I don't know what happened with the young man, I do remember taking a trip to Home Depot to find that knife. Recently, District Attorney of Manhattan, Cy Vance, sent investigators to do the same thing. According to the NY Times, what they found was that "at least 14 retail stores in Manhattan — including major retailers like the Home Depot, Eastern Mountain Sports and Paragon Sports — have been selling illegal knives." Regarding the investigation, a spokesman for Home Depot noted, “These are common knives,” Mr. Holmes said, adding that contractors and homeowners often used them “for various home-improvement projects…We simply didn’t know that they were being used for any other purpose.”

At a press conference held last Thursday, Mr. Vance alleged that,” ..There are a number of stores and individuals who have been brazenly and knowingly violating the law in this area.” To avoid criminal prosecution, “seven of the stores removed illegal knives from their shelves, agreed to forfeit profits they made from selling those knives over the past four years and agreed to finance a campaign to educate the public about illegal knives.”

Whether or not stores were innocently, or knowingly carrying these weapons, the DA Office's investigation will make New York a safer, and more just city. Access to these illegal knifes will be restricted to those seeking to use them for illegal purpose and keep those trying just trying to make a living and stay out of prison, out of trouble.

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Newly Announced: Mentoring Children of Prisoners Grant

From ACS:

The Administration for Children and Families' (ACF) Administration on Children, Youth and Families' (ACYF) Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) is accepting applications for the Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) Program for statewide projects within the fifteen states with the highest populations of incarcerated persons. Additionally, applications are being accepted from Native American tribes and tribal entities that include one or more of the fifteen targeted states and may also include other states with high numbers of incarcerated Native Americans.

This program supports the creation and maintenance of one-on-one mentoring relationships between children of incarcerated parents and caring, supportive adult volunteer mentors. The intent of this program is to support the establishment or expansion and operation of mentoring programs, using a network of public and private community entities, in states with substantial numbers of children of incarcerated parents.

Within ACF, FYSB is developing integrated service delivery capacities (interoperability) among ACF-funded human services programs, including collaborations established by formal agreement with The Children's Bureau and The Office of Family Assistance, to identify MCP-eligible youth in order to expand the delivery of mentoring services and maximize positive outcomes for children, families and communities. The MCP program is designed to be a community-based mentoring program in which a child or youth age 4 up to age 18, is appropriately matched with an adult mentor, who has been screened and trained, for a one-on-one (one mentor/one youth), friendship-oriented (non curriculum-based) mentoring relationship.

To Apply, click here.

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"Changing Perspectives, Rebranding Reentry"

On June 15, 2010 the Fortune Society and the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay, in collaboration with the Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force, held its last installment of the 2010 Harlem Reentry and Public Safety Forums. The forum was entitled," A Community Approach to Reentry: Changing Perceptions, Rebranding Reentry."

We chose the topic of messaging around reentry because no matter how dedicated we are as providers or individuals with incarceration histories, we cannot accomplish our missions without engaging the public and convincing them that reentry matters. During the forum, we sought to answer the question: "How can we message around reentry in a way that changes the conversation from one about fear to one about families and communities and reinvestment?"

Luckily, to help us begin thinking about answering this question, we were joined by four distinguished panelists: Mr. John Caher, Director of Public Information for New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Ms. Collen Roche, Principal Managing Director, Linden Alschuler & Kaplan, John Kofi Sanful, Executive Director, Career Gear and Tom Robbins, Staff Writer at the Village Voice.

Mr. Caher suggested using public access television to deliver your message to the viewing public, and offered us a look at a clip of his reentry program that discusses issues affecting reentrants. He is also in the process of creating a Speaker's Bureau composed of formerly incarcerated individuals who have been successful in their transition back into the community. The Bureau will aim to improve the public's perception of returning individuals by doing outreach at community gatherings.

Ms. Roche gave a host of useful tips to help engage the media:

-Identify reporters in your area who report on criminal justice related activities and reach out to them. Invite them to have a cup of coffee and tell them about your program and your expertise.
-Know what is unique about the story you want to pitch and immediately identify this for the reporter. Be succinct! Get your story out in two sentences!
-Never call a reporter after 2pm.
-When something you have done is covered in the media, send it out to everyone you know, including key constituents in your area.
-Approach editorial boards that have an interest in your area of focus.

Mr. John Sanfur, Executive Director at Career Gear, spoke about his work helping men reinvent their image following incarceration. He also addressed innovative ways to get attention from the public, and used the Celebrity Tie Auction sponsored by Career Gear as an example.

Finally, Tom Robbins, a Staff Reporter at the Village Voice, (author of "Holidays Off Ice," an article about three men celebrating the holidays post-incarceration) encouraged the audience that "stories of hope, which is what you have to offer" sell, they just must "be carefully put together." Mr. Robbins advised that the combination of a hopeful story with the statistics around the cost of incarcerating an individual versus the cost of keeping them in the community with supports is naturally compelling. He suggested that community based organizations "focus laser-like" on promoting one story at a time.

Thanks to all our panelists and attendees for making our forum series such a success!

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What's new at the Task Force?: Considering "Parolee Notification Meetings"

In our continuing efforts to implement and test innovative criminal justice strategies to reduce recidivism and increase public safety, the Task Force has begun thinking about introducing "Parolee Notification Forums," into Upper Manhattan. To learn more about these meetings, I invited Dr. Jeffrey Fagan, Professor of Law and Epidemiology, to speak to the Task Force this past week about his joint research (with Andrew Papachristos and Tracey Meares) on Chicago's Project Safe Neighborhood's (PSN) "Offender Notification Forums." At the meeting, Dr. Fagan reviewed the design of Project Safe Neighborhood’s gun violence intervention with a focus on the Forums.

As Dr. Fagan explained, PSN is a federally-funded program to bring federal, state, and local law enforcement together with researchers and community agencies to devise strategies for reducing gun violence. Among the most effective of the three interventions involved in PSN were the “Offender Notification Forums,” which had the goal of "1) providing attendees with information regarding law enforcement consequences and available options relevant to crime desistance and 2) altering perceptions of law enforcement." The design of the forum embodied prevailing research on "law and legitimacy" which has demonstrated that individuals are more likely to follow the law when believe in the substance of the law and have positive interactions with law enforcement. For more, see Tom Tyler's work. To promote these ideas, the physical set up of the meetings had an egalitarian design (parolees, law enforcement, offenders sit around a table),the tone of the meetings were respectful, and law enforcement addressed the parolees in a direct and matter of fact way about the consequences of being caught with a gun.

The forums included three sets of presentations followed by one-on-one time with the parolee's that included the following messages:

Law Enforcement Message (Police Department and District Attorney's Office): You are being targeted because of your involvement with gun crimes. You will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law if caught with guns. However, you have a choice. Community Providers are here to help you chose the right way.
Service Provider Message: Everyone can make choices to avoid reoffending. We are here to give you the tools to make the right choice.
Formerly Incarcerated Individual: The violence in the community has to stop. It is affecting our families and each other. Few of us will make it out alive. The District Attorney's Office and the Police aren't joking. If you are caught you will go away for a long, long time.

Dr. Fagan's and his team's research indicates that the various interventions created a 37% decrease in homicide and that the forums were the most effective aspect of the campaign.

Many of us at the meeting were struck by the idea that one positive interaction with law enforcement could so significantly alter an individual's behavior. However, most of us seemed to agree that there is something unique and powerful about the idea of law enforcement uniting with service providers to directly communicate the consequences of offending, and tying it to an offer of assistance. As always, it is thrilling to sit in a room with governmental agencies and service providers, many of whom come to the table with such different perspectives, but all share the common goal of improving public safely, reducing crime, and ultimately, improving our communities.

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Division of Parole & Evidence Practices: "Parole Beyond All Limits"

Today I attended New York State Division of Parole’s Conference entitled “Parole Beyond All Limits: Rebuilding, Families, Communities and Individual Lives.” The conference included three panels, “Faith Based Community’s Response to Prisoner Reentry,” Strengthening the Family for Successful Family Unification,” and “Parole Beyond All Limits.”

The “Parole Beyond All Limits” panel focused on the future of parole in the state of New York and its transition towards evidence-based practices, which is a hallmark of the Transition from Prison to the Community model (TPC) that New York has adopted. With 86% of individuals leaving prison on parole, Steve Miller, Division of Parole, addressed the importance of using a model “based on research and documented findings” to assure the transformation from ex-offender to productive citizen. Among the new initiatives Mr. Miller highlighted are the following:

1) The use of the Transition from Prison model which uses a collaborative approach to maximize experience and resources
2) The introduction of COMPAS, an actuarial risk assessment tool that identifies the risk and needs of individuals being released from prison and indicates how to respond with a case management plan
3) The development of an online document that will follow an individual from incarceration through release called a Transitional Accountability Plan (TAP). This document will ensure communication between Parole and Department of Corrections, continuity of services, and reduce duplicative efforts.

Parole also introduced their new Graduated Response Decision Making Tool. This scheme, created in collaboration with the Vera Institute of Justice, helps Parole Officers determine how to respond swiftly and proportionately to behaviors that indicate a risk of reoffending. The guide recommends interventions that address the underlying cause of the behavior and are responsive to the level of risk of reoffending that the behavior signals. The graduated response tool has also formalized an incentive structure for positive behavior. Affirmation of positive behavior through the use of incentives has been shown to be crucial in promoting program compliance. ( Harrell, Cavanagh and Roman 1998)

Ms. Letricia McClearly, a Senior Parole Officer in Brooklyn outlined the scheme and commented on three of the findings of the study that she found notable.

1) The crime of conviction is not a strong predictor of the risk of reoffending. (Instead, the presence of criminogenic factors such as substance abuse, lack of employment/training, anti-social behavior, contributes to a likelihood of reoffending).
2) A long stay in a shelter greatly increases the likelihood of recidivism.
3) More contacts with individuals on parole are associated with increased technical violations.

While Ms. McCleary praised the hard work of Parole Officers (POs) she also acknowledged that Parole must look at the quality of interactions between parolees and their POs, ensure that POs are offered “education and training” to successfully implement the Division’s new approaches, and abandon the “cookie cutter approach” that leads to failure.

As the Taskforce continues working with Parole on our Pilot Case Management Program and at Harlem Community Justice Center’s Parole Reentry Court, we are excited to be piloting many of the evidence based practices described in the conference and reporting to you on our successes.

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YEAR UP: TUITION FREE TRAINING PROGRAM FOR YOUNG ADULTS

FROM YEAR UP:

YEAR UP'S MISSION is to close the Opportunity Divide by providing urban young adults with the skills, experience, and support that will empower them to reach their potential. Through our unique,
tuition-free training program, Year Up prepares talented young adults for professional careers in IT and finance and for success in higher education.YEAR UP OFFERS the intensive training and preparation required of college students and young professionals. Our participants have an opportunity to:
* Earn a stipend of up to $260 per week and 10-16 free college credits
* Learn in-demand technical, financial, and professional skills for 5 months
* Succeed in 6 month corporate internships with leading companies, such as American Express, Citi, Google, Bloomberg, JP Morgan Chase and others
* Belong to a community with on-going career support and guidance

YEAR UP STUDENTS are ages 18-24, have a high school diploma or a GED, and are hungry for an opportunity to learn and to succeed. Our success is our graduates: enabling them to participate in the economic mainstream and become change agents in their lives, families, and communities. We have received excellent results to date:

* Year Up NYC has served 497 young adults since its first class in 2006
* Over 77% of our graduates are working and/or in college within four months
* Our alum earn an average of $34,000 annually-compared to $3,500 on average in the year prior to Year Up

YEAR UP IS CURRENTLY ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS TO OUR SEPTEMBER CLASS! APPLY TODAY!

CONTACT ADMISSIONS TEAM FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Phone: 212-785-3340 x1338
Email: Admissionsnyc@yearup.org<mailto:Admissionsnyc@yearup.or g>
Location: 55 Exchange Place, Suite 403, New York

VISIT ONE OF THEIR OPEN HOUSES, held every Tuesday from 1:00-4:00PM at our office. They are a great way to visit Year Up NYC, meet our current students and staff, and learn about the admissions
process. (Take the 2/3 or 4/5 to Wall St. or the J/M/Z to Broad St; we are located between Broad and William St.)

FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW TO APPLY TODAY:
1. Fill out an Interest Form online, at our office, or over the phone
2. Call admissions team to schedule an Interview.
3. Before coming in for your interview, complete an Application, which can be printed out from our website or obtained by visiting or calling our office. You will bring in your application when you come in for your interview.

APPLICATION DEADLINES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
1st Deadline: June 9th 2010 Extended Deadline: July 21st 2010

Click "Reply" to contact Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts at YCrespo4@schools.nyc.gov<mailto:YCrespo4@schools.nyc.gov

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Drug Court Conference Features Reentry Courts

Christopher Watler is the Project Director of the Harlem Community Justice Center where he oversees the operations of the Harlem Parole Reentry Court and Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force.

This week I am blogging from the National Drug Court Conference in Boston. This year’s conference includes a Reentry Court track. Reentry Courts, similar to Drug Courts, use the authority of the court to monitor offenders returning to the community

Jeremy Travis in his seminal article, "But They All Come Back: Rethinking Prisoner Reentry," helped to focus the nation on prisoner reentry (Sentencing and Corrections, May 2000). Borrowing from the experience of Drug Courts, Travis articulated a bold idea: “judges as reentry managers.” In 2000, nine jurisdictions were funded by the U.S Department of Justice to test the Reentry Court model, including the Harlem Parole Reentry Court. Since that time Reentry Courts have opened around the country. In 2010, a new Reentry Court grant program from the U. S Department of Justice has renewed national interest in the Reentry Court model.

On Tuesday I joined a day long focus group of Reentry Court practitioners from around the country convened by the Center for Court Innovation, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Council of State Government, and Judge Jeff Tauber of Reentry Court Solutions. Judge Tauber and Al Siegel, Deputy Director of the Center for Court Innovation, served as moderators. Several Reentry Court models were represented and discussed at the roundtable:

Model 1: Drug Court/Court with a reentry component. The judge receives cases referred from prison or jail for monitoring in the community. In this model the judge works closely with probation/parole and treatment providers. In some cases the Drug Court can retain jurisdiction on clients that fail and are sent to prison/jail. Returning them to corrections-based treatment prior to their return to the community.

Model 2: Administrative Court where the supervising agency (parole/probation) utilizes an Administrative Law Judge/Hearing Officer to enhance the normal post-release supervision process. In some jurisdictions, Pennsylvania for example, the Judge and a member of the parole board both sit on cases, although the parole board retains jurisdictions.

Model 3: Pre-Entry Courts as in the case of California were a panel of judges hear probation violation cases and can craft reentry plans as part of the violation process and retain jurisdiction once they are released. In Dallas, assessments are completed pre plea so the judge may consider if a person is eligible for the Reentry Court program as part of the sentencing.


Participants identified the unsustainable growth in corrections cost and the high rates of recidivism for persons on parole/probation. The “crisis in parole” that Travis had cited 10 years ago in his article still exist, yet the growth in evidence-based reentry strategies points the way more firmly towards reform.

Dr. Doug Marlow presented to the group on the research related to reentry and drug courts. According to Marlow reentry efforts must remain true to “evidence-based principles.” He cited the failed Project Greenlight Program, meta analysis of Drug Court studies, the recently released SVORI study, and the recently released evaluation of the Harlem Reentry Court as confirming what we now know:

• Intensive community supervision efforts should focus on high risk offenders and should structure on average 40-70% of their time;
• Corrections-based treatment services are much more effective when paired with community-based treatment;
• Family therapy models do not work for adult offenders, with the exception of models that train family members to respond to a reentrant criminal thinking and behavior;
• The most effective job training occurs when a reentrant first has a job and then receives support and instruction on career development and job search that leads to increased wages and skills;
• Inmates only receive about between 50-66% of their needed services behind bars, this figure declines dramatically post-release, reaching lows of 10% in some cases. Lack of continuity in post-release service access reduces success;
• Reentrants need greater supervision in their first 180 days of release to insure that they access needed services;
• Graduated sanctions applied immediately and consistently in response to behaviors are essential;
• Discretionary release (a.k.a revocable conditions) are the best way to reduce re-incarceration;
• Safe and drug free housing is critical to success, “nothing else matters if this is not in place;”
• And, evidence-based programs to address criminal thinking mediate other efforts. They should be manualized and delivered with a high degree of fidelity.

What does all this mean for Reentry Courts? The new funding is welcomed and will no doubt spur interest in the Reentry Court model. Yet, the national patience for increased social spending may not last long. Reentry Courts must show results over the next three to five years to justify their role in the national community safety infrastructure.

Persons returning from prison and jail will present new challenges for courts. Issues of due process, resources, victim rights, state policy, and local coordination with probation/parole and corrections must be addressed. Courts on their own cannot solve the reentry problem and may be challenged more than ever to work through the community, political, and agency fault lines of reentry. More than Drug Courts and most other problem-solving courts, Reentry Courts rely on effective local collaborations with a broad range of stakeholders. As a community court project, the Justice Center provides a partnership infrastructure that benefits our Reentry Court. Platforms like this blog and our recent work convening the Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force allow us to connect with the community, share information, and address key challenges in ways that we could not when our Reentry Court project began in 2001. These synergies have enabled us to do things that most courts would find difficult to do.

I left the focus group feeling energized. Reentry Courts have tremendous potential, as part of the national reentry effort, to improve public safety in our most vulnerable communities by supervising reentrants and helping them to access services.

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New Resource on Expanding Housing Options for People Leaving Prison or Jail

FROM THE COUNCIL OF STATE GOVERNMENT'S JUSTICE CENTER:

Successful prisoner reentry often hinges on individuals finding stable housing that can help them break the cycle of reincarceration. The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center released a new publication today, Reentry Housing Options: The Policymakers' Guide, which provides practical steps that lawmakers and others can take to increase public safety through better access to affordable housing for individuals released to the community.

“Some people wonder why, when housing shortages are so acute, we are focusing on finding suitable housing for people leaving prison and jail. All you need to do is look at recidivism rates among these individuals who lack housing to know that it is a public safety issue—for both supervising them in the community at fixed addresses and for helping them avoid future criminal activity,” said New York State Assemblyman and CSG Justice Center Chair Jeffrion Aubry. “And it is simply the right thing to do so these individuals can be law-abiding, contributing members of families and communities.”

Reentry Housing Options is the result of a project supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice. The guide provides an overview of several commonly accessed housing options, including the benefits and limitations of six of these options:

Private-market rentals
Public housing
Affordable housing
Halfway houses
Supportive housing
Specialized reentry housing

It also examines three distinct approaches to increasing the availability of these housing options: improving access, increasing housing stock and revitalizing neighborhoods. Examples are also provided of how each approach has been put into action by particular programs:

Housing Authority of the County of Salt Lake (Utah)
St. Leonard's Ministries (Chicago, Ill.)
New Communities Initiative (Wichita, Kan.)

“Many landlords and housing authorities will not rent to people with criminal histories, but some promising reentry housing options can help overcome these obstacles,” said Carol Wilkins, who chairs the National Reentry Resource Center's committee on housing. “This guide helps community leaders understand what resources are available for these individuals and what the benefits are—to families, to corrections budgets and to public safety—when efforts are made to expand affordable housing options that are within their reach.”

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"Making Second Chances Work": The First Conference of the Second Chance Act

Last week, I attended the first national conference for the 14 recipients of the Second Chance Act grants. The conference, Making Second Chances Work, held in Washington D.C. from May 26-27, 2010, offered a forum for peer to peer networking, where grantees from across the U.S. had an opportunity to meet and discuss their experiences and challenges in implementing their programs, to hear from reentry experts, and learn about the types of technical assistance available through the National Reentry Resource Center.

The aim of the Second Chance Act, signed into law in April 2008, is to improve outcomes for individuals reentering our communities from prison and jail. According to the Council of State Governments, "this first of its kind legislation authorizes federal grants to government agencies and non profit organizations to provide employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, family programming, mentoring, victims support, and other services that help reduce recidivism." Each program employs evidence based reentry strategies, and is required to track its effectiveness by comparing the program's recidivism rates against those reentrants not receiving the programming. If effective, the programs will improve the safety of communities across the United States and save taxpayers millions of dollars. Harlem Community Justice Center's Parole Reentry Court is one of the grantees of the Second Chance Act.

Our Wednesday, May 26th Welcome Reception served as an opportunity to hear from many of the members of Congress and representatives for the U.S. Department of Justice that were instrumental in the passage of the legislation. The Honorable Sam Brownback (KS), United States Senate, Danny Davis (IL), United States House of Representatives, Bobby Scott (VA) U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Pat Colloton, Kansas House of Representatives all addressed the funding recipients, praising the group for its innovative and promising program designs and conveying the urgency of the success of the programs. The Honorable Grownback told us that in this difficult economic climate, the "test will come early for these programs," and that "if the numbers are not there, the programs will not survive." Jim Burch, Acting Director of the Bureau of Justice prepared us to be ready to testify in front of Congress on the outcomes of these programs. Representative Danny Davis focused on the enormous potential of the Second Chance Act programs to improve the safety of communities across the United States and save taxpayers millions of dollars that would otherwise be used to incarcerate individuals who, with appropriate community support, can thrive in our communities.

The Conference was an inspiring and educational experience that imparted the importance of the programs as a national blueprint for reentry and the urgency of producing tangible results. To learn more about the topics covered at the conference, click here. Rethinking Reentry will continue to update you on the progress of the Parole Reentry Court's efforts to reduce recidivism.

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