The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/corrections/prisoner-reentry/)
Short-term responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated that more fundamental reforms to the system of probation and parole are feasible, the 2020 Innovations Conference at John Jay College was told.
Millions of Americans with criminal records are stymied from leading normal lives because of state and federal statutes that can bar them from getting certain jobs, finding housing or exercising their right to vote. A Rutgers scholar says some of the barriers are coming down, and there’s reason to hope that the process will continue.
Nearly 50 percent of former inmates experienced a traumatic event in the eight months after they were released, according to a recent Florida State University study. Citing ex-inmates’ trauma and lack of support systems, the authors believe change is long overdue.
With national recidivism rates hovering above 80 percent, successful reintegration seems an elusive goal. Why can’t communities recognize those who achieve it with a “certificate of acceptance?,” suggests an inmate in Washington State.
“The consequences of the larger-scale release of prisoners are now showing up in the arrest data,” said Michael LiPetri, chief of Crime Control Strategies for the New York Police Department.
The pandemic has made the already difficult hurdles of navigating life after incarceration almost insurmountable, returning citizens and prisoner advocates told a webinar Wednesday.
The federal Bureau of Prisons pays private contractors to run 195 “residential re-entry centers.” Critics say financial incentives make them reluctant to send offenders to home confinement.
As more inmates are released to avoid exposure to the coronavirus, community social-service providers worry that many “don’t have anywhere to go,” a videoconference on COVID-19’s impact on programs that help the formerly incarcerated find employment, health counseling and educational opportunities was told.
Even in the best of times, many jurisdictions fail to provide adequate resources to give formerly incarcerated people the help they need. The coronavirus crisis has made addressing that failure even more critical, write two researchers.
The Small Business Administration has imposed broad and arbitrary restrictions on access to disaster relief for small business owners during the national health crisis based on arrest or conviction history. The restrictions were neither required nor contemplated by Congress, and they run counter to the agency’s own guidelines, argues the Center for Collateral Consequences.