When a better life seems a distant dream for freed convicts

Assertive community treatment teams working through outreach-centered programs in Maricopa County have become an industry standard for treating those with persistent and severe mental illnesses who have recently been incarcerated. They provide a long-term approach, aiming to halt a cycle of incarceration and hospitalization by focusing on underlying issues such as what caused the police interaction and incarceration.

Juveniles who were placed on sex offender registries, some for crimes they committed before they were even teens, face a slew of life changing consequences that follows them for the rest of their life: “depression, addiction, suicidal thoughts, and other signs of post-traumatic stress.” Many will struggle to find a job, others will get targeted and harassed, some, overwhelmed by the pressure, have ended their life. Parents, legal scholars, and activists are pushing back against the notion that children, under the law, should be tried as mini adults.

A consent decree ensures juveniles are not held more than 21 days in a Jackson, Miss., facility that was the subject of a lawsuit over the number of children it held and the conditions they faced. But opponents, including a youth court judge, say this is not solving the underlying problems facing the young offenders and even the plaintiffs in the suit says the larger issue is the approach to juvenile justice in the state.

In Wisconsin, the Department of Corrections is tailoring their prison education programs to meet the needs of the job market, and it is benefitting former inmates as well as the economy. Milwaukee Area Technical College works to get inmates credentials, which helps them get jobs upon release from prison. The investment pays off. For every dollar spent educating inmates, the government saves $5 in the years after their release.

Crossroads for Women, a New Mexico nonprofit, is helping formerly incarcerated women find community, support, and recovery. Using trauma-informed care practices, the program offers a comprehensive list of services like housing, mental health treatment, employment counseling, and substance abuse treatment. Underlying all services is the understanding that no individual is trauma free and that community and relationships are crucial to sustainable recovery.

Freed from prison after serving at least 15 years, often much longer, for crimes committed when they were teens, a group of men holds twice-monthly Zoom meetings to lend structure and peer support to their lives during a time when COVID-19 restrictions foreclose other face-to-face meetings. Under Washington, D.C.’s Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, 42 men have been released. At least 22 of them meet regularly to share leads on possible jobs, discuss their frustrations, and encourage each other to stay focused on the positive.

Frustrated by a tight labor market, two locally owned Grand Rapids employers discovered the virtues – economic, not just moral – of hiring formerly incarcerated people, whose gratitude for an opportunity translated into excellent performance and less risk of adding to rapid turnover. The employers helped guarantee success by paying for support services that made post-prison transitions easier. The employers then talked hundreds of other local employers into doing the same. Besides providing a business advantage, the program changes lives and is evidently contributing to much lower rates of recidivism.

Michigan prisons and the state's secretary of state teamed up to provide people leaving prison on parole with the one thing they often lack: valid personal identification papers. Without a Social Security card or state ID, people struggle to get hired, rent housing, or open a bank account. In the program's first six months, more than 1,200 people got IDs. That's only a third of those eligible. Private groups have taken up some of the slack. The state says it should provide get the service fully up to speed by late 2021.

New Hampshire's Rockinham County gives some people with extensive drug and criminal histories an offramp from the criminal legal system, in the form of housing at Cross Roads House and a drug court to emphasize treatment over punishment. But, while other cities in the state meet such needs with multiple programs, the second-most populous county in the state has a severe shortage of supportive housing and services. Such services can make the difference between prison and success, and even between life and death in a place with high rates of overdose deaths.

The Returning Citizen Stimulus program provides temporary cash assistance to people recently released from prison, who face steep barriers to finding jobs and stable housing when transitioning out of incarceration. The payments started in 2020 and have helped more than 10,000 former inmates get on their feet, with 42 percent of recipients finding employment within five months of their release.