Spotlight Announcement

10/23/2008: New Toolkit on Law Enforcement Role in Prisoner Reentry: Four Agencies Selected as "Learning Sites" with Justice Department Grant

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center announced today the release of the toolkit, Planning and Assessing a Law Enforcement Reentry Strategy. With support by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the kit has been designed as a guide and self-assessment tool for policing personnel and their partners to help reduce repeat crimes and facilitate successful reintegration by the more than 700,000 individuals who return to our communities from prisons each year and the more than 9 million from jails.

Written in partnership with the Police Executive Research Forum, the toolkit focuses on 10 key components of a reentry initiative that can be tailored to the needs of a jurisdiction: assessing the viability for an initiative; involving stakeholders; defining the initiative’s priority population; implementing mission, goals, and performance measures; setting initiative’s terms and identifying participants; improving information exchanges and systems collaboration; engaging in transition planning; enhancing supervision; developing law enforcement organizational capacity; and ensuring sustainability.

"We're very pleased to have the COPS Office contribute to the important work being done in the reentry arena," said COPS Office Director Carl R. Peed. "The successful integration of individuals returning from prison requires the implementation of community policing—where law enforcement, the community, the private sector, and others come together to improve public safety. This guide will help law enforcement and the communities they serve do just that."

According to a Justice Department study, more than two-thirds of prisoners released from state corrections facilities will be re-arrested within three years of their release. "The implications for public safety, for state and local budgets, and for improving the lives of people released from prisons and jails and their families are tremendous," said Justice Center board member and Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn. "This publication is a critical tool in identifying practical steps to help stem recidivism and make individuals' return to their neighborhoods and to their families successful."

The Justice Center also announced the toolkit will be employed in four COPS-supported "learning sites" that will plan and implement various recommendations and proposed strategies. The selected agencies are Muskegon County (Mich.) Sheriff’s Department, Metropolitan (D.C.) Police Department, the Las Vegas (Nev.) Metropolitan Police Department, and the White Plains (N.Y.) Police Department. The sites will conduct a needs assessment and receive targeted technical assistance from reentry experts. Feedback from agency personnel, the technical assistance team, and other research will be summarized and released nationally on aspects of difficult-to-execute law enforcement reentry activities.

"These law enforcement agencies have demonstrated a commitment to improving public safety and other outcomes that result from supporting an effective prisoner reentry approach, and we are pleased they will be participating," said Rep. John Tholl, a New Hampshire state representative and chief of police who helped to review the applications. "We are confident that the agencies not only will be able to design and implement enhanced reentry strategies, but will help inform the work of law enforcement agencies across the nation."

Planning and Assessing a Law Enforcement Reentry Strategy can be downloaded for free from the Justice Center at www.reentrypolicy.org/le_pubs_tools or from the COPS Office at www.cops.usdoj.gov/RIC/ResourceDetail.aspx?RID=461. Print copies can be obtained from the COPS Office Response Center at 800.421.6770. To be notified of updates on the learning sites project or other reentry news, sign up for the Justice Center's free newsletter at www.reentrypolicy.org. Additional information on law enforcement and reentry is available at www.reentrypolicy.org/issue_areas/reentry_law_enforcement.