Reentry Outcomes Research Articles

Transition Practices for Adjudicated Youth with E/BDs and Related Disabilities

Reentry outcomes for formerly incarcerated youth are dismal. The challenges these youth face are even further intensified when they have learning or emotional and behavioral disabilities. Successful transition services need to be initiated in the correctional facility and continue in the community. This article discusses interventions designed to aid the reentry of formerly incarcerated youth into their communities. Caps in existing service delivery are identified. Guiding principles for effective reentry programs and specific strategies focused on increasing employment and continuing education, both while incarcerated and when released, are highlighted.

Cross-agency coordination of offender reentry: Testing collaboration outcomes

Successful offender reentry is arguably one of the most challenging contemporary issues, with policymakers calling for more effective coordination between criminal justice and social service agencies. Evidence linking cross-agency coordination to reentry outcomes is limited and underdeveloped. The theory of relational coordination was used to develop hypotheses regarding the impact of cross-agency coordination on reentry outcomes in “reentry hot spots” and to test those hypotheses. Results pointed to some differences in cross-agency coordination between cities that were part of reentry policy efforts and those that were not. Results also revealed that relationships between criminal justice agencies were relatively strong, while their relationships with employment providers were comparatively weaker, but the impacts of these relationships on reentry outcomes were limited at best. Findings support using relational coordination to understand reentry collaboration, to identify strengths and weaknesses of collaborative ties, and to measure their impact on reentry outcomes.

Restorative Reentry: A Strategy to Improve Reentry Outcomes by Enhancing Social Capital

A challenging question facing policy makers in the criminal justice arena is how to best encourage the safe and effective reentry of formerly incarcerated individuals in such a way that they become well-integrated and productive members of our communities. This article argues that blending theoretical components of restorative justice with strategies thought to improve social capital may result in better long-term outcomes of the reentry process. Policy recommendations are offered for constructing restorative reentry programs that promote evidence based outcomes.

Substance Abuse Treatment, Anticipated Maternal Roles, and Reentry Success of Drug-Involved Women Prisoners

This article reports analyses of recidivism and relapse experiences of substance-abusing women inmates as they reenter the community. Outcomes are compared for women who completed a work-release therapeutic community program, women who entered but did not complete the program, and those who did not receive work-release therapeutic community treatment. Additionally, this article compares women who anticipated living with their children following release to those who did not have children with whom they expected to live. Women who completed the treatment program were more likely to remain arrest-free during the first 18 months following prison, and they used drugs less frequently. Women who expected to live with their minor children were significantly more likely to enter the treatment program, but maternal role expectations had no direct effect on reentry outcomes once treatment experience and background factors were controlled.

BALTIMORE MEN’S HEALTH CENTER BUILDS HEALTHY FAMILIES ONE MAN AT A TIME

We applaud the October issue of the Journal for examining the public health consequences of incarceration—in particular, the work of Freudenberg et al.1 As reiterated throughout the issue, the incarcerated population in the United States is disproportionately male, African American, and poor. This profile coincides with the men who receive medical care at the Baltimore City Health Department’s Men’s Health Center, a primary care center for uninsured men. The Men’s Health Center is funded in part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in partnership with the National Center for Primary Care. In a culture where poor men of color are undervalued, discounted, and viewed as dispensable, the founders of the Men’s Health Center chose the motto “Building Healthy Families . . . One Man at a Time” because they believed that uninsured men, like most Americans, seek to improve their life situations. Nearly 1 of every 5 men who seek care at the Men’s Health Center is newly released from prison or jail. As these men try to manage the various areas of their reentry into society, including reuniting with families, finding employment, and adhering to probationary regulations, they face the challenge of meeting their medical needs without the benefit of health insurance. As noted by Freudenberg et al., lack of health insurance is associated with higher recidivism rates.1 By providing medical care to ex-offenders, MHC potentially helps reduce rates of recidivism and provides a needed public health service. We encourage future research and policy development that integrates access to primary care with access to mental health and substance abuse treatment in models of community reentry. Our efforts to improve the health status of uninsured men have led to collaborations between the Men’s Health Center and the Maryland Reentry Partnership Initiative in which referrals to the center are given to men soon to be released from prison or jail. Representatives from the Men’s Health Center also participate on the Committee of the Baltimore City Ex-Offender Initiative, whose aim is to improve reentry outcomes. The Committee of the Baltimore City Ex-Offender Initiative recently opened the Re-entry Center, which serves as a one-stop shop for social resources for men, including medical referrals to the Men’s Health Center. The health of a community depends in part on the health of its individual members. Criminal justice, housing, education, human services, employment, and public health policies must be viewed holistically. We encourage other safety net providers to specifically target ex-offenders for outreach and to form local collaborations and linkages, and we advocate a health care system that does not leave its most vulnerable citizens without the ability to obtain affordable medical care.

Improving career re-entry outcomes for people with multiple sclerosis: a comparison of two approaches

The article presents findings from a career re-entry project for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). The effects of two job placement strategies on accommodation self-efficacy, employability maturity and employment status were compared. At a 16-week follow-up, 11 of the 37 participants (all of whom were unemployed at the inception of the project) had re-entered the labor force, an outcome that compares favorably with the 25% nationwide employment rate reported by people with MS. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.