Policy statements and recommendations throughout this Report suggest the formation of teams or committees to plan, administer, monitor, and/or evaluate various aspects of a re-entry initiative, whether screening and assessment upon entry to facility or the development of a cross-training effort. Each of these working groups typically involves staff designated by high-ranking officials (if not the directors) of multiple agencies or organizations.

It is important for these high-ranking officials and directors to develop an organizational structure that provides one central steering committee or executive committee to guide each of these smaller, more focused, working groups. Such a superstructure, particularly when it reports to the chief executive for the jurisdiction, establishes comprehensive oversight over distinct efforts to address prisoner re-entry within the jurisdiction. Referred to as the "oversight team" in this recommendation, this structure ensures that the people directing the effort have a clear understanding of the initiative's overarching goals, an appreciation for how partnering organizations have interacted in the past, and a mechanism to address problems that may surface within a particular aspect of the re-entry effort.

Example: Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative

The Governor established a State Policy Team led by the Governor's Criminal Justice Policy Advisor. It comprises senior staff from the Departments of Corrections, Community Health, and Labor and Economic Growth, and the state's Family Independence Agency. The State Policy Team directs an Executive Management Team, which coordinates "Decision Point Work Groups" to address possible changes to admission, release decision, and other key decision points identified in the TPCI model developed by the National Institute of Corrections.

How the oversight team organizes its subcommittees or task forces will depend on the jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions establish working groups according to issue area, such as workforce development and employment issues, housing, and mental health. The Transition from Prison to Community Initiative (TPCI), a problem-solving approach that the National Institute of Corrections has developed for states, identifies "key decision points," (e.g., intake/screening, release) and some states have organized their subcommittees accordingly. Still other states may wish to organize the working groups geographically, in order to focus on major metropolitan areas to which disproportionately large numbers of people return from prison or jail.

Because a re-entry initiative contemplates so many different agencies and organizations, the oversight team has the potential to include dozens of people, making the administration of the project unwieldy. To keep the decision-making process streamlined, while ensuring opportunities for all affected constituencies to guide the initiative, it may make sense to establish an advisory council to the oversight team.

Four other denominators are common to the effective administration of a re-entry initiative that integrates the operations of numerous organizations: 1) the role of the chief executive; 2) the staffing of the initiative; 3) the level of investment that community leaders have in this organizational structure; and 4) the methods of communication up and down the chain of command.

First, as stated earlier, the oversight team needs effective channels of communication with the chief executive of the jurisdiction. Governors obviously have little time to focus on prisoner re-entry, and it is neither realistic nor appropriate to expect their routine, or even periodic, involvement in the meetings of the oversight team. It is unlikely that even the members of the oversight team, as extensive as their responsibilities are, will be able to coordinate meetings that are more frequent than once every quarter. Still, if the chief executive initially convenes the oversight team and designates a personal representative on the team (who keeps the chief executive updated about the progress of the initiative), it ensures a level of accountability and collaboration that might be elusive among a group in which no individual outranks the others.

Second, the work of the team needs to be coordinated by one person, who will staff the team, set the agenda for meetings, and monitor the implementation of agreements that the team reaches. This role is essential to maintaining momentum between meetings and to demonstrating to members of the oversight team that the meetings are worthwhile and productive. In many jurisdictions, the obvious candidate to serve this role is a designee of the lead corrections authority. After all, unlike other organizations participating in the initiative, corrections is relevant to every aspect of prisoner re-entry. That said, charging a representative of the department of corrections to staff the initiative may be strategically unwise in some jurisdictions. This is especially true in jurisdictions where the parole, probation, or other key community corrections agencies do not report to the director of corrections. In addition, charging someone in the state department of corrections with coordinating the initiative may shortchange the importance of collaboration between local jails and the state prison system. Another possibility is to rotate responsibility for staffing the team periodically (e.g., annually) among the different organizations represented on the management team.

The oversight team may also want to consider engaging a third party to provide such support.

Example: New Jersey Institute for Social Justice

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ), a Newark-based urban research and advocacy organization that analyzes and addresses the underlying causes of social and economic disparities in New Jersey's urban areas, served as consultant and facilitator for New Jersey's participation in the Re-Entry Policy Academy, coordinated by the National Governors' Association. Through its consultant role on the Policy Academy, NJISJ built on its work on the New Jersey Re-Entry Roundtable, which it coordinated (along with the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute) and helped staff.

A nongovernmental organization, however, should not independently assume this role. Instead, the chief executive of the jurisdiction must charge the independent organization, ideally through a formal contract, with this responsibility.

Third, the success of a re-entry plan ultimately depends on the extent to which the people who must implement it are invested in its success. Leaders in the community must have some stake in the oversight structure, and they will have such a stake only when power is shared with them. To that end, the team should ensure that community leaders feel that the oversight structure includes and represents those who understand the dynamics of the neighborhoods most directly affected by prisoner re-entry. Without such representation, community leaders are likely to undermine the credibility of decisions made by the oversight team. Of course, not every community leader can be included on the team itself, and some will invariably resent the elevation of particular community leaders to the team. To minimize fallout with any particular constituency, the oversight team should ensure significant community representation in the advisory council. The oversight team itself could include two designees of the advisory council. Designees could be rotated periodically. Alternatively, the oversight team could rely upon an officer of one or two large, statewide organizations (e.g., New Jersey's Black Ministers' Alliance) to serve on the team.

Fourth, routine communication within and across organizations about the issues on which the management team is focusing is critical. The oversight team structure should regularly update staff about the extent of collaborative efforts among their organizations. In this regard, internal newsletters, conferences, and websites can be useful tools. The Michigan Department of Corrections, for example, disseminates a monthly newsletter to its 18,000 employees in which it provides frequent updates about the department's role in the Michigan Re-Entry Initiative.

It is also important for the oversight team to receive regular updates from the subordinate subcommittees and task forces. Too often, new developments in the field or important insights about the implementation of a new policy, which are considered common knowledge among line staff, do not find their way to management.

Dialogue within and between partnering organizations can help strengthen a collaboration. By disseminating written materials to partners, posting weblinks to partner agencies, and explicitly publicizing the partnership in both internally and externally disseminated material, agencies can fortify the collaboration. The National Institute of Corrections, for example, has used weblogs (blogs) to generate dialogue about re-entry issues among partners spanning multiple agencies. ^[1]