Developing and Implementing Prisoner Reentry Programs and Policies: Lessons from the US

Workshop: 9.30am - 4.30pm
Registration: $120
Refreshments and lunch included

Further information at end of document

James Austin, Ph.D.
The Institute on Crime,
Justice and Corrections
The George Washington University
1819 H Street, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20006
202-496-6321 (office) 202-496-6342 (fax)

Reentry has become the new buzzword in correctional reform in the United States. This "new" concept means many things to many people and has varying levels of importance to various agencies. Approximately 600,000 inmates will be released from the US prisons this year with nearly 200,000 being released with no parole supervision requirements. These numbers may pose a public safety issue given that significant numbers of these releases are then re-arrested and/or are re-incarcerated. Moreover, concerns are being voiced about the lack of specific programs and services, both within and outside the prison system.

The new found interest in prison releases is being met with a fair degree of skepticism and suspicion. For them, reentry is simply another word for parole supervision which the federal government, since President Reagan's administration, has tried to discredit and dismantle. Today, several US states have abolished all forms of discretionary release via parole.

Sentencing reforms in the US have resulted in sending more people to prison for longer periods of time through truth in sentencing, mandatory minimums, abolition of parole, and the reduction in the use of parole through more restrictive parole policies. Only after the incarceration rate has reached such historic levels, the attention is now being redirected toward prison releases.

Previous efforts to enhance probation and parole supervision have been limited to intensive supervision programs that employ new supervision technologies, as opposed to 'helping' technologies. Too often these "intermediate sanctions" have resulted in more and not less incarceration. Many are concerned that the new wave of reentry programs may have the same effects.

Another concern is how reentry will work within a prison system that traditionally is ill-suited to prepare offenders for release in a structured manner. How well inmates are prepared for release has rarely, if ever, been an organizational concern for prison administrators. Their primary goal is to maintain order within their burgeoning prisons with the resources and staff allocated by the legislature.

The purpose of this workshop seminar is to present guidelines on how best to design and implement prison reentry systems. It will cover issues such as targeting, classifying and programming offenders from the time of admission through release to the community.

The seminar will provide examples of risk assessment systems that have been developed and validated in the United States and Canada, as well the use of spatial mapping technologies to determine where ex-offenders are being released to and the impact of placing large numbers of ex-offenders in disadvantaged communities. From this review, recommendations for altering current sentencing and release practices will be discussed.

Registration Enquiries
Marlene Chaitra
Department of Criminology
The University of Melbourne
Victoria, 3010
Email: m.chaitra@criminology.unimelb.edu.au

Enquiries related to form and content of workshop
Dr Garry Coventry
Telephone: +61 3 9523 9571
Email: froggy@onthe.net.au