The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has long provided resources and assistance across the nation to “reentry ” efforts. It’s signature website, simply labeled “Reentry“, contains information on existng state and federal resources, as well as other state and national activites, related to “Reentry “. It’s site map provides a review of national efforts being provided in all fifity states and territories. Although, not always up to date, this site provides an excellent overview of federal efforts and resources dedicated to the “Reentry” issue.
Indiana Leads With Reentry Court Rules
State involvement and leadership in the reentry court field appears to be a requisite for successful programs. No state has been more active in establishing a state presence in the reentry court field than Indiana, where they have established court perameters through “Reentry Court Rules“.
As described in the July 12th issue of the Indiana Court Times, “in 2006, the General Assembly enacted legislation authorizing local courts to establish reentry courts (IC 33-23-14). The Indiana Judicial Conference Board of Directors adopted reentry court rules in 2008, and IJC began certifying reentry courts in 2009. There are currently six certified reentry courts in Indiana. The Judicial Conference established the Problem-Solving Courts Committee in 2006 to support the innovation of judges at the local level. The committee’s mission is: “To encourage the broad integration of the problem-solving philosophy into the administration of justice to improve court processes and outcomes while preserving the rule of law and to encourage judges to take a proactive role, using a non-adversarial, coordinated strategy to problem-solving while creating an environment where participants are encouraged to take responsibility for change.” Judge John Surbeck of Allen Superior Court [Indiana’s first Reentry Court Judge] serves as chair of the fifteen member committee.”
Indiana sets out definitive rules for certification of Indiana’s Reentry courts. For those reentry courts that are not certified, the state provides
“A reentry court that is not certified by the Indiana Judicial Center, and an applicant whose plan of operation does not comply with requirements for certification under these rules is not entitled to receive a favorable review or recommendation from the Indiana Judicial Center on any application for funding of services from state, federal, or private funding sources.” (Sec.13)
Clearly Indiana is creating financial incentives for courts to conform to state standards and become certified. It’s the onlycase I know of a state judiciary attempting to dictate the structure and and procedures used in reentry court. To my way of thinking, it is an important option available to states, committed to establishing effective state-wide reentry court programs.
For additional information about reentry courts, please contact Mary Kay Hudson, Problem-Solving Court Administrator, Indiana Judicial Center,[email protected].
Grant Support For States With Reentry Courts
The following was taken from a 6/29/10 Press Release:
“The Public Welfare Foundation has granted the Center for Effective Public Policy (the Center) and its partner, Northpointe Institute for Public Management (Northpointe), funding to support “Strategic Planning Capacity Building for Prisoner Reentry Under the Second Chance Act.” This grant award will support the development of strategic plans and provide assistance directly to the states that support essential planning. This grant award will increase the capacity of states to create better strategic plans that lead to more effective implementation efforts, ultimately increasing the likelihood that each jurisdiction will be able to impact the success rates of people returning home.”
$9.5 Million awarded to Cal “Parole Reentry Courts”
Seven grants from the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA) were recently awarded to Alameda, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties. In all, $9.5 million in Federal stimulus funds will be distributed to Parolee Reentry Court pilots to be coordinated by the California Administrative Office of the Courts. In doing so, California has committed itself to the largest court based prison reentry demonstration project in the nation’s history.
The Parole Reentry Court Program, will provide funding to each county for up to two and one half years All the awardees have well defined and implemented drug and/or mental health courts. Priority was given to jurisdictions serving large numbers of parolees and those with higher risks of recidivating. All pilot reentry courts will be expected to use risk/needs assessments in their implementation and adopt research tested evidence based practices throughout their programs.
For California, with its overwhelming prison overcrowding and reentry problems, this project marks a remarkable change from business as usual. For the first time, ex-prisoners will be under the jurisdiction of the California Courts. While a parole officer will initially will decide who is referred for the program, once a prisoner is accepted by the Reentry Court judge, that judge with assistance of the reentry court team ( including a parole officer) will have final say until termination from the program.
25% OF Americans Say Prisons Do Good Job
” Angus Reid Public Opinion” has just released a poll of Americans that finds among other things that:
- 75% of Americans polled disagree with the statement that “the prison system in the U.S. does a good job at helping prisoners become law-abiding”
- 72% support alternative penalties other than prison for non-violent offenders.
Reentry Court Literature Review
Alexandra Lampert, a former judicial fellow with the San Francisco Superior Court Collaborative Courts’ Program, and now attending Stanford Law School, has recently completed a literature review on reentry courts. It is informative, providing summaries of a number of articles and evaluations in the reentry court field [Reentry Court Scholarship and Evaluations]
Reentry Court Axiom: Smaller “Margin Of Error”
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) sponsored Reentry Court “Focus Group”, held in Boston, June 1, arrived at what might be described as a “Reentry Court Axiom”, that “the greater the risk of a particpant re-offending, the smaller the “margin of error”, for reentry court practitioners, to get it right”. Reading a transcript of the “Reentry Court Focus Group” proceedings left me with the strong impression that, while the Reentry Court are largely based on the drug court model, high-risk offenders returning from jails and prison, would pose a greater challenge than other participant groups to date.
This conundrum was spelled out in the presentation of Dr. Douglas Marlowe, NADCP Director of Law, Policy, and Science, when he described the above mentioned, “Reentry Court Axiom” and the need to be diligent in the application of “evidence based practices” (see: Dr. Marlowe’s comments). Other practitioners/experts in the field came to seemingly diferent conclusions. Judges Steven Manley of Santa Clara County , CA, and Chris Carpenter, of Boone County, Mo., agreed that the reentry court population would have to be treated differently than other populations, and that they presented a special challenge for the reentry court professional. But they concluded that allowances woud have to be made to keep the high risk offender in the reentry court; in effect lowering the bar required of reentry court particpants to stay in the program.
After reviewing the transcript, the seeming conflict resolved. Both Dr. Marlowe and the practitioner/experts agreed that this would be a more difficult population, one that would require “evidence-based practices” to be applied faithfully and diligently. But within those “practices” resided the flexibility (and even necessity) for “lowering the bar”, by applying intermediate sanctions to non-violent probation/parole violations. Innovative intermediate sanctions, applied swiftly and with certainty, will allow the Reentry Court to keep the offender in the community, without violating the participants’ parole/probation, or sending the participant back to prison.
I came away from my co-facilitaiton of the focus group (with Al Siegel, Deputy Director of the Center for Court Innovations), with an understanding of the difficulty of effectively dealing with the Reentry Court population. But also with the belief that Reentry Court is our last best opportunity to stem the flood of offenders returning to our prisons. [Reentry Court Focus Group Transcript. June 1, 2010]
Supreme Court to hear Cal Prison Case
The U.S. Supreme court has agreed to hear an appeal of Schwarenegger v. Plata, where a three judge appellate panel found California to be denying prisoners adequate medical and mental health care, in violation of the “cruel and unusual punishment” provision of the U.S. Constitution. The Appellate panel ordered the State of California to reduce its prison population (now at approximately 150,000) by 40,000 prisoners, by December, 2011 (AP story).
In a similar vein, another recent news story told the sad tale of state’s reducing and in some cases eliminating prison based drug and other treatment/rehabilitation based programs (AP story). One can only hope that these programs are being cut back because of states’ intent to release drug dependent offenders, to be provided treatment and rehabilitation services in their communities. As unlikely as that may be, it will be incumbent on all to be vigilant and proactive in maintaining and expanding treatment both inside and outside of state prison walls.
NIC: An Important Reentry Court Resource
The dilemma for the Reentry Court field is that there is a relative dearth of specific information and scientific literature on Reentry Courts. Some are so disheartened, that they are prepared to put off developing a Reentry Court till research based guidance is provided. I would suggest that it’s far better to make use of relevant research materials and evidence based practices available to the reentry court field now, than wait for specific reentry court publications that may arrive too late to be of use. This is especially true, as the “drug court” that reentry court is modeled after has already been intensely evaluated and shown to be the most effective modality, in dealing with the high-risk offenders, those offenders who are overwhelmingly leaving our jails and prisons.
The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) has been an important resource for correctional reform information since 1977. Over the past decade, the NIC has dedicated itself to providing state of the art tools for jurisdictions interested in improving ” offender reentry” from jails and prisons into their communities. While it’s publications and web-based tools are rarely reentry court specific, they do provide important and relevant research based information that can be applied to your reentry court program. Importantly, the NIC has adopted an early intervention model, that focuses on the offender’s seamless reentry from the time of sentence (and by inference, the time of arraignment).
The NIC “ TPC Reentry Handbook (Transition from Prison to Community) was developed [in 2008] as a resource for a broad range of stakeholders involved in improving transition and reentry practices (p.3)”. The National Institute of Corrections and project partner the Urban Institute developed its “Transition from Jail to Community” project (TJC) with a similar purpose, with its TJC Implementation Toolkit coming on line just last month. According to the NIC blurb, “This web-based learning resource guides local criminal justice agencies and community-based organizations through implementation of the TJC model, in whole or in part.” It would appear these publications and web-based tools ought to be part of every reentry court’s library.
Dr.Marlowe speaks out for Reentry Courts
Dr. Doug Marlowe, speaking in Boston this month on the latest research on reentry programs, concluded that excluding reentry court, most every state-of-the-art reentry modality had shown little impact on recidivism.
Dr.Doug Marlowe, Chief of Science, Policy, and Law at the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), made his comments at a presentation for a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) sponsored Focus Group on Reentry Courts, held on June 1, 2010.
While the presentation only dealt peripherally with reentry courts, its implications to the field were significant. Dr.Marlowe’s message was that present coercive and non-coercive reentry efforts don’t work. Even when we use the most sophisticated programs and state-of-the-art technology, they have not shown themselves to be appreciably better than no program at all.
Presented through a logical progression of easily followed power point slides (attached below), Dr. Marlowe examined the failures of a number of reentry programs, culminating in the recent SVORI (Serious & Violent Offender Reentry Initiative) meta-analysis. Following the trail of $100 million and 2,391 participants over a 3 year period, the SVORI evaluation concluded that even the best non-court based programs showed higher re-incarceration rates than the control group (though rearrest rates were somewhat lower).
Dr. Marlowe’s conclusion (among others) was that returning offenders were not likely to engage in the highly structured and intensive programs required for successful reentry, without graduated sanctions and incentives, the mark of the reentry court. While the jury may be out as to the ultimate success of the reentry court, we have reason to believe they will be highly successful with the high risk offenders returning from our jails and prisons ( as the drug court model they emulate, has been extraordinarily effective when dealing with the high risk offender in the community).
[See “Reentry of Drug Offenders”; Dr.Douglas Marlowe, J.D., PH.D ]
Best Practices Family Tool Kit Available
Having recently discovered the Best Practices Family Tool Kit , I can reccomend it highly to the reentry court practitioner. The “Ohio Institute on Correctional Best Practices” has produced a clear, concise, and highly relevant publication on family issues of returning offenders. As the Ohio Institute describes its publication, “it aims to systematically identify empirical evidence regarding strategies, programs and practices geared towards involving offenders’ families during incarceration and reentry. It highlights practices and program strategies that are proven, promising or exemplary best practices and provides references for more extensive reading. The objective of this tool kit is to provide information that will better inform policymakers, practitioners and researchers on maintaining and strengthening appropriate family relationships during incarceration and community reintegration”. It also contains a superb bibliography for those who wish to understand the critical issues relating to the family, the returning offender left behind.
New Guide To Ex-Offender Housing
The Council of State Governments has published a guide to housing options for ex-offenders. The publication entitled, “Reentry Housing Options: The Policymakers’ Guide” was written by Katherine Cortes and Shawn Rogers and released June 1, 2010.
The Council describes it’s publication this way; “The policy guide provides practical steps that lawmakers and others can take to increase public safety through better access to affordable housing for individuals released to the community. It offers an overview of several commonly accessed housing options and also examines three distinct approaches to increasing the availability of these options: improving access, increasing housing stock and revitalizing neighborhoods.”
How NADCP got its start
The NADCP Conference is history. Over 3000 participants and 3o workshop tracks over a 3 day period. The openning Plenary session was the most moving part of the Conference, with dozens of former addicts and their families giving testimonials on how drug court had changed their lives. Followed by presentations by Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson and her boss Attorney General Eric Holder. Both gave wonderful speeches in support of Drug courts and were cheered with great enthusism.
Which brought to mind the story of how NADCP got its start. In 1995, Laurie Robinson and I were both at a TASC Conference in Orlando, Florida. Laurie was Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Justice Programs (OJP). I was president of a fledgling non-profit organization made up of about a dozen drug court judges and working out of a file cabinet in my court chambers in Oakland, California. I had spoken to Laurie on previous ocassions, but knew her slightly.
When I ran into her at the hotel swimming pool, we talked about the conference briefly and then discussed the state of the Drug Court field. We agreed that Drug Courts were a grassroots phenomenum that needed to provide its own technical assistance through its own drug court professionals. By the time we had finished our conversation, Laurie had decided to provide funding for the development of drug court standards. That was the year that OJP funded “Defining Drug Courts: The Ten Key Components”, a document that became something of a bible to the field. Although the actual funding wasn’t a great deal of money, it was enough to get a fledgling organization, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, off the ground.
Over the years, besides being a partner in the creation of NADCP, Laurie has continued to be a strong supporter and persuasive advocate for drug courts and problem solving courts. I thought about that as 3000 plus gave her a well deserved standing ovation at the NADCP conference.
Even Probation Successes Get The Blues
Today, Wednesday I facilitated three morning sessions on the many faces of reentry court programs, and interviewed an ex-federal probationer. The interview turned out to be the most exciting part of a very interesting day. I got to ask the ex-probationer ( who had spent 108 months in federal prison)what were his problems with the Federal Reentry Program. He candidly spoke of the lack of services available and the specific lack of employment assistance. A federal probation officer who then joined the ex-offender on the stage explained that work was available, but that ex-offenders were typically not ready or prepared to do it. The contrast and brief confrontation between the two men was a change from the success stories often heard from ex-offenders. Sometimes, it simply better to get ex-offenders to respond to probing questions regarding programs they’ve completed.
BJA Sponsored Reentry Court Focus Group Shines
Sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Boston Reentry Focus Group completed a full day session, with BJA bringing together an extraordinary group of fifteen experts from the Reentry Court and related fields. (Participants). The agenda dealt with topics as diverse as community coalition involvement and State Jurisdiction for Reentry Courts (Focus Group Agenda). Lunch featured a presentation by Dr. Doug Marlowe, NADCP Director of Science, Policy, and the Law on “How Evidence Based Practices Applies To A Reentry Court Environment” (the powerpoint will be published shortly). A publication on Reentry Courts seen a likely outcome.
