The first recommendation provided under Policy Statement 3, Incorporating Re-Entry into Organizations' Missions and Work Plans, suggests understanding the extent to which the existing mission and culture of organizations or agencies collaborating on a re-entry initiative contemplate prisoner re-entry. It also notes that such an assessment may reveal that performance measures currently used by one or more of these systems inhibit work in this issue area.

As elected officials seek greater accountability from the agencies and organizations they oversee and fund, interest in performance measures, especially ones that can be measured across jurisdictions, has increased in every professional area. Performance measures, which provide benchmarks for particular professions, should not be confused with specific outputs or with broad policy goals, such as the employment of people released from prison or jail.

In addition to determining how their performance measures align, organizations seeking to strengthen their collaborative efforts should ensure that some of these benchmarks enable them to measure progress toward a set of shared policy goals.

Example: East County One Stop (OR)

The nonprofit East County One Stop receives funding through private foundations, rather than WIA, and is thus not constrained in serving "high barrier" populations (including people with criminal records). It comprises 40 partner organizations involved with workforce development. To improve delivery of services to people released from prison and jail, and to improve collaboration among the partners generally, East County One Stop partners formed a committee to identify criteria to measure success in serving high-barrier populations.