From The Center for Justice Innovation:
Mass incarceration, as the journalist Nicholas Dawidoff has recently written, means mass reentry. But the term “reentry” is itself flawed, the trouble starting with the prefix: re. What are most people coming out of jail or prison reentering to?
Governments and philanthropy have made important investments in reentry programming in recent years, and there have been pockets of innovative programming. The federal government has worked to address the obstacles that stand in the way of integration, yet the investment falls far short of what is needed to support the millions released from jails and prison each year. Moreover,
the commitment is dwarfed by the towering amounts local, state, and federal governments pay each year to lock people up—$80 billion is the official measure from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, but in 2017, Prison Policy Initiative
estimated the true cost to be more than double that: $182 billion.
Talk of “second chances” is endemic in reentry programming, but rarely do we recognize that many people sentenced to jail or prison never got a first one. Perhaps we should think of the goal for people returning as entry, an overdue acknowledgement of the necessity of social integration. Daunting, yes, but less so when weighed against what we currently spend to incarcerate—and reincarcerate—people in a self-perpetuating cycle.
Building a different cycle was the focus of a recent convening of leaders of organizations from across the country working to support and integrate people returning from incarceration. A wide range of initiatives was highlighted—from an income support program administered by CEO, to efforts, since successful, to have Medicaid authorized to cover some of the health needs people have before being released from incarceration. The goal at all times was asking: what approaches are working, and what can be brought to scale?
Continue reading the pdf here.
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