B: Addressing Core Challenges

< >

Outline
Introduction
Policy Statements:
3
4
5
6
7
Additional Resources

Chapter Introduction & Outline

3.

Incorporating Re-Entry into Organizations' Missions and Work Plans

A.: Determine how each organization's mission relates to re-entry.
B.: Concentrate services and supervision in the communities where releasees live.
C.: Engage community-based organizations, including faith-based institutions, to serve people who are incarcerated and who have been released from prison or jail.
D.: Ensure that releasing authorities comprise experts who understand the value and appropriateness of supervised release and evidence-based decisions.

4.

Funding a Re-Entry Initiative

A.: Focus resources on programs that have an evidence base and concentrate whatever limited funding is available on periods immediately preceding and following a person's release from prison or jail.
B.: Determine how sources of funding intended for the same populations and communities can be coordinated and leveraged effectively.
C.: Manage the growth of the corrections population by making smart use of release decision policies and graduated sanctions for violators of probation and parole and then reinvesting the savings generated through such measures in the communities to which
D.: Cultivate volunteers from community and faith-based groups to increase staffing and program capacity.

5.

Promoting System Integration and Coordination

A.: Create and maintain forums for project oversight, information sharing, communication, and problem-solving across agencies and organizations.
B.: Expand opportunities for intersystem and interdisciplinary education and training.
C.: Link information systems so data for criminal justice, health, labor, and social services populations can be effectively shared and analyzed as appropriate.
D.: Assign staff to be responsible for boundary spanning among organizations serving people during-and following-their incarceration.
E.: Prepare contracts or memoranda of understanding defining the terms of the partnership, including how shared resources will be managed and accountability will span agencies involved in the initiative.
F.: Establish policy goals and benchmarks common to all parties and agencies involved in re-entry and devise methods for system-wide evaluation.

6.

Measuring Outcomes and Evaluating Impact

A.: Develop a sound logic model in order to build a shared understanding of a program's objectives, strategy, activities, and the relationships between program components and partners.
B.: Develop performance measures so that program administrators can continuously monitor staff performance, program components, and overall program progress.
C.: Conduct process evaluations to identify problems with program implementation, strategy, and service delivery.
D.: Conduct impact evaluations to determine whether and to what extent a program had its intended effect.
E.: Employ a cost-benefit analysis to quantify whether a program is operating efficiently.

7.

Educating the Public about the Re-Entry Population

A.: Reassure the public that people who present a risk to the community are supervised upon their release, and reincarcerated when appropriate for failures to comply with their conditions of release.
B.: Make clear that prolonging the incarceration of every prisoner or returning every violator of probation or parole to prison or jail is neither good policy nor fiscally responsible.
C.: Inform the public about the large and growing number of people with criminal records in the community.
D.: Help the public appreciate that preparing people in prison or jail for their release and providing support to them upon their return makes families and communities stronger, safer, and healthier.