With 97% of Missouri’s incarcerated men and women returning to their communities, the Missouri Department of Corrections awarded nearly $3 million to 34 non-profit organizations that belong to the Community Reentry Funding Project. According to a July 20, 2010 MDOC press release posted in the Boonville Daily News, the Community Reentry Funding Project is funded by clients who are on community supervision, and who pay intervention fees.
The money will be used to aid people when they are released from prison by offering services in the area of housing, substance abuse and mental health treatment, finding a job, and education. Having access to such services will help those who have been incarcerated to have a smoother and more successful reentry process, the Missouri DOC declares. The Missouri DOC intends to work in collaboration with community agencies to provide services and to increase public safety.
Tracking the success, or failure, of reentry initiatives that received MDOC funding falls to The University of Missouri School of Public Affairs. The Community Reentry Funding Project is three years old, and has received high marks in the first tracking period. UM School of Public Affairs reported that the first evaluation of projects concluded that there was an increase in employment rates, the level of job readiness skills rose, rates for procuring safe and affordable housing by recently released people improved, and obstacles with transportation to jobs and medical services saw a decrease.
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