D: Managing the Key Transition Period

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Outline
Introduction
Policy Statements:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Additional Resources

Chapter Introduction & Outline

19.

A.: Ensure that transition planners, working with community-based organizations, are familiar with the full range of housing options available in each community and maintain lists or inventories of available housing.
1.: Homelessness is prevalent among people released from prison and jail.
B.: Determine on an individualized basis the particular housing needs for each person released from prison or jail.
2.: There is insufficient affordable housing available to people coming out of prison.
C.: Evaluate the feasibility, safety, and appropriateness of an individual living with family members after his or her release from prison or jail.
3.: Of the affordable housing available, people with criminal records often are not eligible for it.
4.: Families can often provide an immediate source of safe housing to people released from prison, but doing so may mean risking the entire family's tenancy in publicly subsidized housing.
D.: Ensure that family violence risks are recognized and addressed in the housing plan of any person whose return to the community may pose a risk to the individual or to his or her family or partner.
E.: Identify the appropriate housing option for each incarcerated individual well in advance of release.
5.: Individuals released from prison who have a connection to stable housing may be less likely to be re-incarcerated than their counterparts.
6.: Transitional and supportive housing options may facilitate a successful re-entry, but they are not available in sufficient supply.
F.: Educate prisoners about strategies for finding and maintaining housing in the community, and teach them about their legal rights as tenants in the private rental market.
G.: Provide individuals who are entering the private rental market-and who demonstrate that they are without adequate resources to pay rent-with small stipends and/or housing assistance for the period immediately after release.
H.: Tap state and local funding used for traditional public safety and criminal justice purposes and leverage those resources to finance the development of supportive housing.
I.: Develop "re-entry housing," to meet the specific and unique needs of people released from prison or jail.
J.: Encourage private sector or nonprofit housing developers or community-based organizations to develop housing accessible to people leaving prison or jail.
K.: Consider individuals leaving prison or jail who have histories of homelessness as part of the homeless priority population, to facilitate their access to supportive housing made available under the McKinney-Vento Act.
L.: Coordinate with the local Public Housing Authority (PHA) to determine the eligibility of people leaving prison or jail for publicly managed or Section 8 housing.

20.

Planning Continuity of Care

A.: Prepare a summary health record containing information about important medical problems, prior diagnostic studies, allergies, and medications for each person released from prison or jail prior to his or her release.
1.: Treatment regimens begun in prison or jail must often be continued upon release to be effective.
B.: Connect prisoners to treatment and health care providers in the community prior to their release to prevent gaps in treatment and services.
2.: Transition planning for continued care upon release is a major problem.
3.: Engaging community-based providers to offer services to inmates is an important strategy that shows promise in reducing the adverse affects of the complex health problems of inmates.
C.: Provide prisoners receiving medications with a sufficient interim supply of essential medications upon their discharge into the community.
D.: Educate people in prison and jail about continuity of care and provide them with the summary health record and other important medical records prior to discharge.
4.: New partnerships around mental health services show promise in improving mental health, recidivism, and cost outcomes.

21.

Creation of Employment Opportunities

1.: There are barriers at the individual level that impede released individuals' efforts to secure and maintain employment.
A.: Educate employers about financial incentives, such as the Federal Bonding Program, Work Opportunity Tax Credit, Welfare-to-Work programs, and first-source agreements, which make a person who was released from prison a more appealing prospective employ
B.: Determine which industries and employers are willing to hire people with criminal records and encourage job development and placement in those sectors.
2.: Many of the communities that receive released individuals are ill prepared to absorb those with low employability.
C.: Review employment laws that affect the employment of people based on criminal history, and eliminate those provisions that are not directly linked to improving public safety.
3.: Most employers are hesitant to hire released individuals.
4.: The willingness of employers to hire this population can be increased if a third-party intermediary is involved and if they are informed about financial incentives and protections.
D.: Promote individualized decisions about hiring instead of blanket bans and provide documented means for people with convictions to demonstrate rehabilitation.
E.: Use community corrections officers and third-party intermediaries to assist employers with the supervision and management of people released from prison or jail.
F.: Identify community service opportunities and internships for people released from prison or jail who cannot find work so that they can acquire real work experience and on-the-job training.

22.

Workforce Development and the Transition Plan

1.: Few inmates are connected to actual jobs-transitional or permanent-before release.
A.: Initiate job searches before people in prison or jail are released using community-based workforce development resources.
B.: Encourage employers to visit the correctional facility and meet with prospective employees before they are released.
2.: Inmates would benefit from pre-release programs that enhance their job-seeking skills.
C.: Engage community members and community-based services to act as intermediaries between employers and job-seeking individuals.
3.: Few prisons and county jails currently provide job placement services.
4.: There are relatively few community-based organizations that specialize in linking former prisoners to work; they are mostly locally based, and cannot begin to accommodate the national demand for services.
D.: Promote use of work-release programs as a transition between work inside a correctional facility and work after release into the community.
E.: Encourage community networks to support prisoners who participate in work release programs.
F.: Provide individuals, upon their release from prison or jail, with written information about their prospective employers or community employment service providers and official documentation of their skills and experience, including widely accepted cred

23.

Victims, Families, and Communities

A.: Provide notification and appropriate information to victims concerning the prisoner's release and re-entry process.
1.: Inmates return in large numbers to a small concentration of neighborhoods that typically face many challenges with limited resources.
B.: Offer counseling and support to crime victims preparing for the return of an individual to the community.
2.: Prisoners often return to live with their families.
3.: Victims and families are often not notified prior to an individual's release.
C.: Ensure that family members receive adequate notification and information regarding the prisoner's impending release.
4.: Parole and probation agencies are well positioned to provide and coordinate services for victims and families.
D.: Consider the needs and strengths of the individual's family and then build community networks to provide counseling, safety planning, and other services to help the family cope with the emotional, financial, and interpersonal issues surrounding the in
E.: Create policies for child-support debt management and collection that encourage payment and family stability, and engage family members in creating a viable support strategy.
5.: Families can play an important role in facilitating successful reintegration.
F.: Ensure timely and appropriate notification of key representatives of the community.

24.

Identification and Benefits

A.: Ensure interagency collaboration to effectively screen inmates for eligibility for TANF, Medicaid, supplemental security income, food stamps, and other benefits, and to facilitate successful prerelease application for these benefits.
1.: In most states, individuals are released from prison without any documents that would enable them to obtain a state-issued identification card.
B.: Assess individuals in prison or jail for eligibility for veterans' benefits and services, and ensure access to those benefits for eligible individuals.
2.: The "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" dramatically changed the American welfare system, and created several specific barriers to eligibility for public benefits for individuals with criminal records.
C.: Help inmates identify and apply for appropriate benefits and identification as part of their transition plan.
3.: State officials often have discretion in how they apply the 1996 welfare law and can opt out of the ban completely.
4.: For those who are eligible for public benefits, there is often a long application process delay.
D.: Ensure that documents issued by departments of corrections are accepted as valid identification by other agencies.
5.: Public housing agencies and providers of section 8 and other federally assisted housing are statutorily required to deny housing to certain individuals.
E.: Improve collaboration among agencies serving individuals re-entering the community.
6.: Housing providers have discretion in how they apply the bans.
F.: Ensure timely access to Medicaid after release for eligible individuals by suspending, instead of terminating, Medicaid benefits during incarceration.
7.: A Drug Provision added to the Higher Education Act in 1998 renders many individuals with drug convictions ineligible for student financial aid.
G.: Facilitate access to "nonrecurrent" TANF benefits by individuals with criminal records who are re-entering the community.
H.: Adopt a narrow definition of "in violation of a condition of parole/probation" for the purposes of TANF, food stamps, SSI & public housing.
I.: Adopt balanced admission and eviction policies for public housing that consider individual circumstances.
J.: Ensure continued Medicaid coverage for TANF families with parents who are released from prison or jail.

25.

Design of Supervision Strategy

1.: Only 45 percent of parolees successfully complete their supervision term.
A.: Engage community members, including representatives from community corrections, law enforcement, and community-based organizations, to serve on a transition team with corrections staff, and charge the team with the development of a comprehensive super
B.: Apply the information from risk- and needs-assessment instruments administered prior to the release decision, and re-assess inmates if necessary to determine appropriate supervision strategies.
2.: Little is known about the relationship between parole supervision and deterrence; however, the most effective supervision strategies include a mix of surveillance and treatment.
C.: Assign a supervision officer to each individual well before the date of his or her release and engage the officer on the transition planning team.
3.: Validated assessments indicate the specific needs and services required for an individual to increase the likelihood of a successful return to the community from prison or jail.
4.: Conditions of supervision will be most effective if they are clearly communicated to and agreed upon by parolees and probationers.
D.: Seek information from, and promote cooperation with, law enforcement in the jurisdiction to which an individual will return before his or her release.
E.: Transfer state prison inmates as the release date approaches (and as appropriate and feasible) to correctional facilities nearest to the community to which the individual will return.
F.: Provide each individual before release with a written copy of his or her terms and conditions of release and transition plan and explain them clearly, ensuring that he or she understands them.