Title: But They All Come Back: Rethinking Prisoner Reentry.
Series: Sentencing and Corrections: Issues for the 21st Century (Research in
Brief)
Author: Jeremy Travis
Published: National Institute of Justice
Subject: Recidivism; probation and parole; inmate education programs
26 pages
bytes

---------------------------

Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file.
To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file
available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-
3420 (877-712-9279 For TTY users).

---------------------------

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice

Sentencing & Corrections:
Papers From the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections
No. 7
May 2000

But They All Come Back: Rethinking Prisoner Reentry 

by Jeremy Travis

The explosive, continuing growth of the Nation's prison population is a
well-known fact. There are now over a million people in State and Federal
prisons--more than a threefold increase since 1980. Less well recognized is one
of the consequences of this extraordinarily high figure: A growing number of
people now under confinement are being released into the community after
serving their prison terms. If current trends continue, this year more than half a
million people will leave prison and return to neighborhoods across the country;
by comparison, fewer than 170,000 were released in 1980.[1] 

This increase in the movement from prison door to community doorstep comes
at a time when traditional mechanisms for managing reentry have been
significantly weakened. While it is true that almost all States still maintain some
form of postprison supervision, 14 have abolished discretionary parole and the
parole boards that historically have overseen the processes of reentry.[2]

About one in five State prisoners leaves prison with no postrelease
supervision.[3] In many States, truth-in-sentencing statutes have curtailed the
duration of postrelease oversight to 15 percent of the sentence imposed for
violent offenders. And underfunded parole agencies in many jurisdictions have
made parole more a legal status than a systematic process of reintegrating
returning prisoners.

Assuming these trends continue, it seems the time is right to revisit the
processes and goals of prisoner reentry. The argument presented here is that
(1) the reentry process presents singular opportunities for advancing social
goals--opportunities difficult to pursue within the legal constructs and
operational realities of current criminal justice policy; (2) the role of "reentry
manager" (the institution responsible for achieving reentry goals) is undergoing
major redefinition; and (3) the judiciary should play a far greater role in
managing reentry.

The emphasis here will be on the process of managing the transition from the
status of "imprisoned offender" to the status of "released ex-offender." Too
often, discussions of the purposes of sentencing and corrections are constrained
by organizational boundaries and legal constructs. For example, we attempt to
compare the value of incarceration to the value of probation or parole. By
compartmentalizing the analysis of reentry goals into debates about the separate
and relative values of imprisonment and community corrections, we pay a price.
We overlook the reality that offenders cross these institutional and legal
boundaries and carry with them the capacity to achieve or frustrate the
purposes of sentencing. We overlook the complex organizational relationships
that exist (or could exist) between agencies that manage imprisonment and
those that manage restricted liberty. And we overlook the practical and
symbolic importance--to the offender, his family and community, the victim, and
society as a whole--of the moment of release. For these reasons, a focus on
reentry could be a way to "unpack" some of the philosophical and policy
dilemmas that beset sentencing today.

Reentry reconsidered 

What do we hope to accomplish in managing reentry? Why not simply show
the prisoner to the door and tell him he is free? Why impose any restraints on
his liberty when that means setting up mechanisms for enforcing them? Martin
Horn, who heads corrections in Pennsylvania, proposed the following thought
experiment: Perhaps we should simply abolish parole supervision, offer released
prisoners a set of vouchers to purchase services at lower cost, and invest the
savings in prevention programs. This is a radical idea, to be sure, but the more
radical question is why even pay for the vouchers? What are our goals in
providing any continuing supervision and assistance to returning prisoners? 

The overarching goal of reentry, in my view, is to have returned to our midst an
individual who has discharged his legal obligation to society by serving his
sentence and has demonstrated an ability to live by society's rules. Accepting
released offenders into the community without a period of supervised release is
morally unsatisfying; they have not yet earned their place at our table. By
contrast, accepting an offender who has demonstrated, during a period of
transition, that he can abide by the rules can be highly satisfying to the offender,
his family, and the broader community. Graduation ceremonies in drug courts
attest to this. 

To achieve this goal, the primary objective, for offender and criminal justice
agency alike, is to prevent the recurrence of antisocial behavior. If that is to
happen, a great deal must be done, for each individual offender, to ascertain the
conditions that lead to relapse and to develop a plan to prevent it. This process
should begin at sentencing and continue throughout the period of release. For
each individual, that means mobilizing the networks of formal and informal
social control that create a support system by detecting early warning signals of
relapse and responding to them. Whatever conditions of release are imposed
should be directly related to giving the offender the opportunity to support his
claim to reintegration; that is, they should be geared to preventing the
recurrence of antisocial behavior and promoting productive activity valued by
society. The powers and authority of the criminal justice agencies should be
mobilized to achieve these objectives. And, when the goal of reintegration has
been met, the moment should be officially acknowledged and celebrated so that
the offender's new life can begin. 

Currently there is no effective means of managing reentry to achieve this goal.
Parole supervision agencies could conceivably manage many parts of the
process, but they cannot realistically extend their reach to the work of
correctional institutions, and they rarely play a role at sentencing. Correctional
institutions can help prepare offenders for release, but their authority is generally
limited to what happens within prison walls. Parole boards theoretically
influenced both ends of the continuum, but in reality even that model--had little
capacity to integrate sentencing decisions, in-prison activities, and
community-based supervision. Some drug treatment programs (discussed
below) most closely resemble components of an effective reentry management
process, and some other treatment interventions, such as programs dealing with
sex offenders, may also serve this purpose. Similarly, a number of recent
innovations at the pretrial phase of criminal justice processing can also shed light
on the reentry issue. Yet we cannot avoid concluding that our system of justice
lacks the organizational capacity to manage the reintegration of released
offenders. 

Restructuring reentry--pressure from the collapse of parole 

A focus on the processes and goals of reentry is particularly timely because the
traditional "reentry manager"--the parole board--has been significantly
weakened, and the system of parole supervision--is struggling to find its sense
of purpose. Ironically, the rise in the number of prisoners has been
accompanied by loss of confidence in the institution entrusted with supervising
their return. Moreover, as the rate of new admissions to State prisons levels off,
these facilities are increasingly becoming populated by parole violators, raising
new questions about the effectiveness of sanctions for postrelease misconduct. 

The pressure on parole

The movement to abolish or severely restrict parole continues to attract support
in the political arena. We are a long way from the ideals of the Model Penal
Code, which granted parole boards enormous power to decide the moment
and conditions of reentry. Mandatory minimums, sentencing guide-lines,
restrictions on good time, and other sentencing and corrections reforms have
had the combined effect, for a large percentage of offenders, of limiting the
temporal window in which release is possible. Truth-in-sentencing laws
adopted in many States have set a high floor for that window: Although the
types of offenses covered by these laws vary, more than half the States now
require that violent offenders serve at least 85 percent of their sentence before
they are eligible for parole.[4] The net effect is that for a larger percentage of a
larger number of cases, one traditional function of parole boards--deciding
release dates for prisoners--has been severely--diminished, if not eliminated.

Parole boards have historically served a second important function--deciding
whether a prisoner is "ready" to be released and supervising the development of
a release "plan." This baby may have been thrown out with the bathwater of
discretionary release. Although imperfect, the system integrated the prerelease
and postrelease functions of the relevant government agencies and provided a
rationale for the offender's reentry. In the best of circumstances, the parole
board would be able to say, "Harry Jones has made sufficient progress in his
personal rehabilitation while in prison, and he has a network of family,
neighborhood support, and work opportunities on the outside sufficient for us
to determine he is ready to be released."


The underpinnings of this approach have been severely weakened by research
findings, public outcry, and political attacks from the left and right.
Rehabilitation programs were found by researchers to be ineffective; parole
decisions were faulted as highly arbitrary; and parole supervision, even if
intensive, was found not to reduce recidivism.[5] Finally, public pressure has
undermined confidence in the parole system, particularly because of the highly
visible, heinous crimes committed by some parolees who might otherwise have
been in prison. In this environment, advocates of parole are having a hard time
justifying its existence.

The answer to the question, "If not parole, then what?" is typically, "More
prison." Yet asking a different question--"How should--we manage the reentry
of large numbers of people who have been imprisoned for a long time?"--might
elicit a different answer. More prison is certainly not the answer. Just as
increased borrowing does not reduce the national debt but only delays the day
of reckoning, longer prison sentences cannot obviate the reentry phenomenon:
They all come back.[6] So a focus on reentry is timely because of the sustained
and successful attacks on the philosophical underpinnings of parole. Ironically,
such a focus would necessarily require reconsidering one of the traditional
functions of parole boards--the integration of activities inside and outside the
prison, and the articulation of a rationale for setting the conditions and timing of
the prisoner's release.

The shifting profile of the prison population

After growing at a staggering pace for almost two decades, the Nation's prison
population may be reaching a new equilibrium, as the rate of increase shows
signs of slowing down. Hidden by the focus on overall trends, however, is the
fact that much of the most recent increase is due to an increase in time served
rather than new admissions. Further analysis reveals that admissions resulting
from parole violations now drive much of the prison growth: Parole violators
now constitute 34 percent of all admissions, a figure that has almost doubled
since 1980.[7] The growth in absolute numbers underscores the power of
parole failures to increase prison populations: In 1991, about 140,000 parole
violators were returned to prison; 7 years later, that number had risen to more
than 200,000--a 45-percent increase.[8] Another policy perspective highlights
the lost reentry opportunities represented by these developments: In 1984, 70
percent of those who left parole status were determined to be "successful"; in
1996, less than half successfully completed their parole terms and a like
percentage were returned to prison.[9] Parole supervision is now as likely to
end up in revocation as in reintegration.

In short, the factors governing use of prison space for punishment purposes
have changed significantly. The growing number of prisoners released on parole
who face an increased likelihood of revocation will be an ever greater driver of
prison expansion. Reversing the trend would certainly relieve pressure on prison
space. More successful reentry management would also restore parole
supervision as a period of transition to a law-abiding life. 

Reentry--cues from the pretrial phase

It is useful to note that reentry is a nearly universal experience for criminal
defendants, not just returning prisoners. Everyone who is arrested, charged with
a crime, and then released from custody moves from a state of imprisonment to
a state of liberty. Everyone who is released on bail, placed on probation after a
period of pretrial detention, sentenced to weekend jail, or released to a drug
treatment facility experiences a form of reentry. 

Reentry in the pretrial context offers insights that can enhance reexamination of
the classic challenges posed by returning prisoners. Something as simple as a
clear explanation of the terms of pretrial release, made by a judge to a
defendant and his family, can advance the interests of justice. Notifying the
victim of spousal abuse that her attacker is about to be released--and
developing safety plans and securing appropriate protective orders--can help
ensure her safety. Requiring that an offender provide for restitution while on
probation can make victims feel that justice has been served. Placing an
offender in a drug treatment program and explaining the terms of his
participation in drug court can be the beginning of the road to recovery from
drug addiction. 

The events that occur with some frequency in the pretrial context of reentry
management can induce us to think more broadly about reentry in the
postimprisonment context. We might ask questions not typically considered at
the point of release from prison: What authoritative figure should explain the
conditions of liberty to a prisoner? Can adequate provisions be made for victim
safety and public safety? Can restitution goals be incorporated and achieved?
Can participation in drug treatment or other support programs be integrated
into the process of reentry from prison? The lessons learned from innovative
pretrial practices can inform the development of policies to manage reentry on
the other end of the continuum--from prison to the community.

New directions in policy

Fortunately, at the same time parole has lost its effectiveness as reentry
manager, important innovations are taking place that suggest different
opportunities--and risks--for managing reentry in new ways. The drug
treatment continuum, for example, mixes treatment processes with criminal
justice processes to achieve successful reentry by reducing drug use and
recidivism. Recent policies on sex offenders are a counterexample showing how
policy shifts and new legal doctrines can militate against successful reentry.
Innovative programs that manage community supervision to achieve public
safety demonstrate how a variety of criminal justice agencies can enforce the
terms of reentry. Finally, restorative justice programs are defining new roles for
victims, families, and offenders, as well as for judges, police officers, and
others, in shaping the terms of reentry. 

The success of the drug treatment continuum

One of the more important developments under way in criminal justice policy is
the linkage of criminal justice processes to drug treatment processes. Drug
courts are one manifestation; increased funding for drug treatment in prisons is
another; expanded use of drug testing as a condition of pretrial release,
probation, or parole is still another. These developments shed light on a
reconsideration of reentry. Research findings on the effectiveness of drug
treatment offer hope that recidivism can be reduced. New models of treatment
supervision and judicial oversight suggest different approaches to reentry
management. And the understanding of relapse leads to new strategies for risk
management.

Treatment effectiveness in the criminal justice context. The evaluation of
Delaware's "Key-Crest" therapeutic community treatment program typifies the
literature on treatment effectiveness and demonstrates the efficacy of a
continuum of treatment after release. Researchers found that drug-involved
offenders who were treated both in prison and after release did better at staying
drug free and arrest free than those who received no treatment. They also did
better than those treated only in prison. In other words, treatment following
release produced a powerful "booster" effect. Preliminary findings of a 3-year
followup of these 6-month and 18-month studies confirmed the effectiveness of
a continuum of treatment after release.[10] Similar research in drug courts is not
yet mature, but evidence from the programs and from a limited number of
evaluative studies is very promising.[11] Contrary to the view that "nothing
works," this research supports the conclusion that drug treatment, provided in
the criminal justice context, works to reduce crime and drug abuse.

Reentry models. The innovations in the drug treatment continuum also provide
rich examples of successful reentry management. Drug treatment programs in
prison are classic reentry initiatives. They assume a fixed (or predictable)
release date. Typically, only inmates within a year of release may participate.
The programmatic offering is explicitly tied to the conditions of reentering the
community--how to avoid relapse. And for programs like Delaware's Crest,
which include postrelease supervision, the continuum is complete and reentry is
managed from the community side as well. 

Although drug courts do not represent themselves as being in the reentry
business, the drug court movement also offers relevant insights. Participating
offenders are continually reminded by the judge that their good behavior buffers
them from the loss of liberty. Most drug courts operate with clearly articulated
contracts. A typical contract may state that the first drug-positive urine test will
result in a warning, the second in a day in the jury box (truly low-cost
detention), the third in a 3-day stay in jail, and the fourth in revocation of bail or
imposition of a sentence of imprisonment. 

This finely calibrated use of the scarce resources of judicial authority and prison
capacity to achieve demonstrable changes in behavior has revolutionary
implications for the current operating philosophies of probation and parole. Is it
possible to imagine a system in which success and failure at meeting the
conditions of postconviction release are so carefully monitored by a figure
having the moral authority of a drug court judge, with such clearly delineated
consequences for failure (and rewards for success), and with the sparing use of
prison to achieve socially desirable results?

Deconstructing risk and relapse. Finally, on a more conceptual level, the
success of the drug treatment continuum illustrates the applicability of the
concept of "relapse" in the criminal justice context. Standing in stark contrast to
popular criminal justice notions of "zero tolerance," the concept recognizes the
possibility of relapse as a daily threat. People who have been sober for decades
still identify themselves as alcoholics who take sobriety a day at a time.

The moment of relapse is an occasion to work harder to support the individual
offender, not an occasion to shun or exile him. Viewed from this perspective,
the practice of sending a parolee back to prison to finish the rest of his term
because of dirty urine or a technical violation of parole seems bizarre indeed.
The parsimonious sanctions meted out by drug courts, designed to change
behavior, mark a different path for achieving the goals of reintegration. 

Finally, the concept of relapse recognizes the growing body of scientific
literature demonstrating that environmental factors can trigger brain reactions
related to the disease known as addiction.[12] Simply placing a recovering
addict at the street corner where he used to buy drugs may cause chemical
reactions in his brain that increase the craving for the drug. Thus, relapse
prevention frequently involves managing the addict's access to a stimulating
environment and training him to sever the links between that environment and
his actions. As Michael E. Smith and Walter J. Dickey argue in another paper
in this series, the risk posed by an offender in the community is highly
contextual.[13] "Risk" is not a static attribute of a particular offender; rather, an
offender's environment, including prospective guardians and opportunities for
reoffending, influences his propensity to make unwise choices. Just as drug
court judges and drug treatment providers seek to reduce the risk of relapse by
focusing on the context of offending, so too reentry managers must account for
the context into which returning prisoners are placed.

Applying some of the lessons of the drug treatment continuum to the generic
reentry phenomenon might prompt us to ask additional questions: What would
be the continuum of risk management? What internal and external support
systems would be constructed for the offender? What level of personal
accountability would be required? How would the support system be activated
at times of relapse, whether real or potential? How would moments and
environments that trigger relapse be reduced? How could the scarce resource
of imprisonment be calibrated to new acts of antisocial behavior?

The sex offender conundrum

The shifting sands of policies on sex offenders underscore the need for careful
development of new reentry paradigms. Few areas of sentencing policy have
seen redefinition as extensive as this one. Currently, 49 States require that
communities be notified so residents know when a convicted sex offender
comes to live in their midst. Every State now has a sex offender registry (some
of them are even online or on CD-ROM, with photos of the offenders)
maintained by law enforcement agencies. A National Sex Offender Registry,
ordered by the President in 1996, became fully operational in 1999. Some
States subject sex offenders who are on parole or probation to regular
polygraph tests to ascertain whether they have experienced the urge to commit
new sex offenses (or have already done so). Chemical castration is advocated
by some as an appropriate form of punishment. The Supreme Court recently
ruled (see Kansas v. Hendricks, 117 S.Ct. 2072) that a State may hold sexual
predators beyond their sentence if they are found "mentally abnormal" and likely
to commit new crimes, and that this confinement does not constitute
punishment.[14] 

Questions in search of answers. These remarkable pressures on previously
settled doctrines of jurisprudence and theories of punishment are worthy of
study on their own terms. They raise a number of questions: Where should sex
offenders live--clustered together or scattered so that each community has its
"share"? Can a person have his name legitimately removed from a sex offender
registry? (Indeed, what constitutes a "sex offender"?) How should communities
react when notified that a new neighbor is on such a list? How should sex
offenders be treated when in mental institutions that look like prisons? On what
basis will they be determined ready for release and with what conditions? The
rapidly changing policies on these issues are also noteworthy because the
research on sex offenses and offenders is notably weak. Not much is known
about sex offenders beyond the fact that there are many types. Adult rapists,
child rapists, pederasts, pedophiles, child abusers--all are quite different from
each other. Little is known about the trajectory of behavior over the lifetime of
an offender. What triggers the behavior? What causes desistence? What
treatments work?

Could a case study offer answers? A focused study of sex offender programs
would shed light on the way reentry issues are defined in the crosscurrents of
correctional policy, sentencing policy, and the politics of crime in this highly
charged atmosphere. Ohio's experience suggests the possibilities. Almost 20
percent of the State's corrections population consists of inmates classified as
sex offenders.[15] The Sex Offender Risk Reduction Center, established in
1995 by Reginald Wilkinson, Director of Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation
and Correction, offers an integrated approach involving outpatient and
residential programs directed by mental health professionals and the
requirement that all sex offenders continue and complete programming after
release. The extensive psychological programming and the links to
community-based programs are impressive and suggest intriguing comparisons
with the drug treatment continuum discussed earlier. 

A focused, pragmatic inquiry would examine the relationship between what is
available on the inside and the outside and could pose questions such as the
following: How are sex offenders prepared for their new status on release?
How are their families and support systems made part of the equation? How
are relapse issues handled, and what is expected of the offender and his
support system when relapse becomes a real possibility? How are the police
involved in the process? How are mental health providers involved? How are
communities engaged in the parole decision? What convincing arguments can
be made against the predictable sex-offender version of NIMBY? This inquiry
would enable us to refocus some of the policy questions inherent in reentry
management broadly defined. 

The public safety rationale for community corrections 

Reconsideration of reentry issues is timely also because of a new sentiment in
the community corrections profession that can make community supervision, if
redefined, a major contribution to public safety. 


The approach in practice. "Exhibit A" in this line of argument is the Boston
experience. A coalition of criminal justice entities spanning the range of Federal
and State agencies, from enforcement to probation, systematically set out to
reduce gun violence among youth gang members. The results have been
breathtaking. In the 2 years following implementation in 1996, homicide
victimization among young people in Boston (those under 24) fell more than 70
percent--to levels below even those of the years preceding the youth violence
epidemic.[16] A critical component of the experiment was the probation
department, which notably did not act alone but, rather, in close concert with
the police. In "Operation Night Light," as the probation-police component of
the program is called, the courts agreed to set and enforce conditions of
probation tailored to chronic youthful offenders. These new expectations were
communicated expressly and clearly to the targeted youth population by a
broad array of agencies that then enforced those expectations when violence
resurfaced. 

"Exhibit B" is the Neighborhood Based Supervision (NBS) program of
Washington State's Department of Corrections, which takes community
corrections officers out from behind their desks and places them directly in
neighborhoods. There they join forces with community policing officers to work
with the community in supervising released offenders. With NBS in Spokane,
the traditional monitoring role of probation and parole has expanded to include
that of information and resource broker, mediator, adviser, advocate, and
counselor, and the community is brought into the process to help hold offenders
accountable for their behavior.

"Exhibit C" is the demonstration project now under way in two Wisconsin
counties. The premise is that released offenders can be a resource for reducing
crime. Judges, probation and parole agents, and prosecutors work together to
develop strategies for imposing and carrying out sentences that reflect a
contextual assessment of an offender's risk to the community. In this pilot
project, the concept of risk is redefined to reflect the day-to-day realities of the
offender's life in his community. This movement from a strict "just deserts" mode
of sentencing to a risk-based model also provides the foundation for new
sentencing legislation in Washington State.

What these programs have in common is the idea that offenders under
community supervision are a valuable asset. Stated differently, the research
finding that offenders under probation and parole supervision commit a
disproportionate amount of crime presents a rare opportunity to produce a
commodity--safety--that is highly valued. Set against the low expectation of
probation and parole agencies being able to deliver this commodity, such a
view of community corrections becomes imbued with the enthusiasm usually
seen in high-risk business ventures and too rarely seen in criminal justice reform
efforts. 

New goals and roles. This approach turns traditional notions of
offender-community relationships upside down. Dennis Maloney has
spearheaded the reinvention of community corrections in Oregon's Deschutes
County under the banner of the community justice movement, a change in
organizational culture suggested in the agency's new name: the Department of
Community Justice. He rallies his troops (the probationers) as though they were
being sent to work in Civilian Conservation Corps camps during the
Depression, assigning them to highly visible public works projects as their
reparation for the harm they have caused. Michael E. Smith and Walter J.
Dickey, in Wisconsin, envision a street corner drug market where paroled
offenders, parole officers, police officers, and young people likely to enter the
drug market develop and implement strategies to reduce the level of violence
and drug selling taking place there. Former Washington Corrections
Administrator Chase Riveland, in his work with Neighborhood Based
Supervision in Spokane, put parole officers and police officers in the same
room, told them to go talk with community residents about the offenders living
in their midst, and was pleased when a parole officer told him the new team
goal is to see increased home ownership because that will mean the community
is safer. In his work in Boston, Harvard's David Kennedy highlights the
importance of bringing all gang members together to meet with the U.S.
attorney and every other relevant law enforcement official to hear the message
that violence will no longer be tolerated and then enforcing that message with
action when necessary.[17]

These initiatives are a far cry from traditional social work approaches to parole
and probation. Anonymity is replaced with in-your-face contact. The
prohibition against consorting with known criminals is replaced with the activism
of community justice teams. Deskbound, 9-to-5 casework is replaced with
enforcing curfews by camping outside the probationer's door at 10 p.m. to
make sure he is home. The organizational boundaries and cultural
incompatibility that kept police and probation apart are replaced by common
purpose. Offenders are seen as assets to be managed rather than merely
liabilities to be supervised. The organizing principle of community corrections
work is no longer a caseload organized by level of risk determined by a scoring
instrument, by type of offender, or randomly. In the new model, the work of
community corrections can be organized by the neighborhood where the
offender lives, the location of the crime problem to be addressed, or the place
where the community justice project is located. Finally, the role of the
community corrections officer is radically different. It is that of partner with the
police in enforcement (as in Boston), community outreach worker (as in
Spokane), and jobs and service broker (as in Deschutes County).

Finding the links to reentry. What still needs to be considered are the
implications of these initiatives for reentry--just how the offender is released into
this new world of supervision. A study of Boston's experience would illustrate
how judges, police officers, and probation officers explained to young offenders
on probation just what the new terms of probation really mean. A study of
Washington's Neighborhood Based Supervision would reveal what the parole
and police officers working in Spokane have learned about setting community
norms for offenders' behavior following reentry. A study of Deschutes County
would demonstrate whether the organizational transformation to a community
justice department has translated into new expectations among prisoners
awaiting release. Do inmates know, for example, that the parole they are about
to receive is unlike any other they have experienced? How has the language of
the street conveyed new messages about behavior and its consequences? With
these insights in hand, we could ask how a seamless system of reentry could
reinforce these messages.

Restorative justice

Finally, the reentry discussion is timely because of innovations on the restorative
justice frontier. Although this is a grassroots movement, much of the innovation
is taking place within the structure of the criminal justice system. Thus, some is
court based, with the formal hearing giving way to an alternative dispute
resolution process involving the victim, offender, lawyers, and community
residents, in addition to the judge, in decisionmaking.[18] Some is police based,
with officers facilitating family group conferences that involve victims, family
members, and the offender.[19] Some is corrections based, as exemplified by
the Reparative Citizen Boards, designed by Vermont Department of
Corrections head John Gorcyzk, on which community members interact with
offenders to draw up a contract stipulating probation conditions.[20] Some is
prosecution based, as exemplified by the Neighborhood Conference
Committees developed under Travis County, Texas, District Attorney Ronald
Earle, where panels of citizens meet with juvenile offenders and, separately,
with their parents and together draw up a contract spelling out the conditions of
diversion from court.[21] The range of these restorative innovations and the
energy behind them are truly exciting. 

Reintegration the goal. For purposes of this exploration of reentry, there is great
power in the notion, implicit in restorative justice initiatives, that an important
purpose of the criminal sanction is reintegrating the offender into the community
following his acceptance of personal responsibility for the harm done to victim
and community and his "payment" of appropriate penance. Of all the attention
paid to various "shaming" programs, little focuses on the implications of the term
"reintegrative," which, according to the literature, is the key modifier. Shaming
without a reintegrative purpose, the literature suggests, is at best wasted effort
and at worst counter-productive.[22]

Victims and the community. The second dimension of restorative justice
philosophy relates to the victim and the community wronged by the crime.
Victims cannot be restored to the status quo ante, nor can offenders be
expected to repair all financial harm they caused their victims. Yet the social
and psychological "restoration" of victims is, in my view, a major societal
purpose that can be accomplished in the administration of justice. Our current
approach frustrates this purpose, however. Progress is piecemeal. Meaningful
participation of victims in court proceedings is a good beginning; it is
accomplished to a larger degree in restorative programs. Restitution can be
enhanced by the involvement of victims. Respect for the processes of
government can be enhanced. Fear of offenders can be reduced. Unfortunately,
however, victim involvement, now increasingly required by statutes and
constitutional amendments, is often seen by the agencies of justice as a burden
rather than an opportunity to advance the interests of justice. Restorative justice
initiatives break new conceptual ground for the possibilities of substantive victim
participation.

Restorative justice initiatives also represent, without stating it in so many words,
significant new processes for defining the terms of reentry. The negotiation of
relationships among the parties affected by the crime results in a new contract--
with reentry of the offender understood in terms of that contract. The victim, the
family, the offender, and other interested parties have a direct role in negotiating
the contract and consequently an interest in its enforcement. "Supervision" is
privatized by allowing the forces of informal control--family, neighbors, police
officers, victims--to be part of the supervisory process. These networks--the
forces thought by researchers to be most effective at reducing crime[23]--are
explicitly and formally given new tasks to accomplish in managing the
reintegration of the offender.

 A provocative proposal

Let's imagine a world unconstrained by budgetary realities, legal conventions, or
implementation considerations. In that world, let's consider a model of reentry
that draws on and applies the lessons learned from the innovations described
here. We make two assumptions: that people are still sent to prison, and that
they are released back into the community with some portion of their sentence
still to be served.



Judges as reentry managers

If a new vision were written on a clean slate, the role of reentry management
would best be assigned, in my view, to the sentencing judge, whose duties
would be expanded to create a "reentry court." At the time of sentencing, the
judge would say to the offender, "John Smith, you are being sentenced to X
years, Y months of which will be served in the community under my
supervision. Our goal is to admit you back into our community after you pay
your debt for this offense and demonstrate your ability to live by our rules.
Starting today, we will develop, with your involvement, a plan to achieve that
goal. The plan will require some hard work of you, beginning in prison and
continuing--and getting harder--after you return to the community. It will also
require that your family, friends, neighbors, and any other people interested in
your welfare commit to the goal of your successful return. I will oversee your
entire sentence to make sure the goal is achieved, including monitoring your
participation in prison programs that prepare you for release. Many other
criminal justice agencies--police, corrections, parole, probation, drug treatment,
and others--will be part of a team committed to achieving the goal. If you do
not keep up your end of the bargain, I will further restrict your liberty, although
only in amounts proportionate to your failure. If you commit a crime again after
your release, all bets are off. If you do keep up your end of the bargain, it is
within my power to accelerate the completion of your sentence, to return
privileges that might be lost (such as your right to hold certain kinds of jobs or
your right to vote), and to welcome you back to the community."

At the time of sentencing, the judge would also convene the stakeholders who
would be responsible for the offender's reentry. They would be asked to focus
on that day, perhaps years in the future, when John returns home. How can he
be best prepared for that day and for a successful reentry? What does his
support network commit to doing to ensure that success? A "community justice
officer" (who could be a police officer, probation officer, or parole officer)
would also be involved, since there might be special conditions, geared to the
neighborhood, that the offender would have to meet.

The judge-centered model described here obviously borrows heavily from the
drug court experience. Both feature an ongoing, central role for the judge, a
"contract" drawn up between court and offender, discretion on the judge's part
to impose graduated sanctions for various levels of failure to meet the
conditions imposed, the promise of the end of supervision as an occasion for
ceremonial recognition. 

Incarceration as a prelude to reentry


If John goes to prison, a significant purpose of his activities behind bars would
be preparation for reentry. What does that mean? It depends on the type of
offender and the offense, and could include sex offender treatment, job
readiness, education and/or training, a residential drug treatment program, and
anger management. These activities would also involve people, support
systems, and social service and other programs based in John's neighborhood.
Drug treatment in prison should be linked to drug treatment in the community,
job training should be linked to work outside, and so forth. In other words,
mirror support systems should be established so that John can move from one
to the other seamlessly upon release.

Even while in prison, John would continue to pay restitution to his victim or to
the community he has harmed--tangible, measurable restitution. A lot of time
would be spent with John's family, to keep family ties strong and to talk about
what John will be like when he returns home. As the release date ap-proached,
the circle would widen, as the support system was brought into the prison to
discuss how to keep the offender on the straight and narrow after release.
Buddy systems would be established and training in the early warning signs of
relapse provided. Again, the community justice officer could broker this
process. All the while, the judge would be kept apprised of progress. 

Setting the terms of release

When released, John would be brought back to court, perhaps the same
courtroom where he was sentenced. A public recognition ceremony would be
held, before an audience of family and other members of the support team, and
the judge would announce that John has completed a milestone in repaying his
debt to society. Now, the judge would declare, the success of the next step
depends on John, his support system, and the agencies of government
represented by the community justice officer. 

The terms of the next phase would be clearly articulated. If John's case were
typical, he would have to remain drug free, make restitution to his victim and
reparation to his community, work to make his community safer, participate in
programs that began in prison (work, education, and the like), avoid situations
that could trigger relapse, and refrain from committing crime. He would be
required to appear in court every month to demonstrate how well the plan was
working.

Making the contract work

The judge presiding over a reentry court would be responsible for making sure
that John held up his end of the bargain and that the government agencies and
the support system were doing their parts. As in drug courts, the court
appearances need not be long, drawn-out affairs; the purpose of invoking the
authority of the court would be to impress on John that he has important work
to do and to mobilize the support network. The power of the court would be
invoked sparingly when John failed to make progress. The court would view
relapse in its broadest sense and would use the powers at its disposal (to
impose prison sentences, greater restrictions on liberty, fines, and similar
sanctions) to ensure that John toes the line. His family and other members of his
support system would be encouraged to attend these court hearings. The
community justice officer would keep the court apprised of neighborhood
developments involving the offender. To the extent John became involved in
programs that made his community safer, there would be occasion for special
commendation. The judge would be empowered by statute to accelerate the
end of the period of supervision, to remove such legal restrictions as the ban on
voting, and to oversee John's "graduation" from the program--his successful
reentry into the community.

This approach would have several benefits. It cuts across organizational
boundaries, making it more likely that offenders are both held accountable and
supported in fulfilling their part of the reentry bargain. By involving family
members, friends, and other interested parties in the reentry plan, it expands the
reach of positive influences upon the offender. By creating a supervisory role
for judges, the approach gives them far greater capacity to achieve the
purposes of sentencing. Most important, by focusing on the inexorable fact that
the prison sentence will one day be completed and the offender will come back
to live in the community, the approach directs private and public energies and
resources toward the goal of successful reintegration. 

Conclusion

To be sure, the reentry model outlined here would not find easy acceptance.
Even if it were embraced in principle, too much may be invested in the current
system to consider undertaking such a major overhaul. Then there are the
multiple logistical challenges, with workload considerations--particularly those
of judges and community corrections officers--paramount. The main challenge
would be to build the interagency relationships essential to making the model
work. That would involve, among other things, creating a link on the conceptual
level between incarceration on the one hand and probation and parole on the
other.

Perhaps the rationales for revisiting reentry outlined here--among them current
sentencing policies that mean more returning offenders, the issue of relapse, the
eclipse of traditional parole--are not convincing on their own. But add to them
the array of innovations under way on such fronts as drug courts, the pretrial
phase of justice processing, and restorative justice, as well as in projects
nationwide that are marshaling the forces of corrections in the service of public
safety, and the times seem to offer that rare mix of policy challenge and
opportunity for new ways of doing business.

Notes

1. Bureau of Justice Statistics, unpublished data for 1998; Prisoners in State
and Federal Institutions on December 31, 1980, National Prisoner Statistics
Bulletin, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, March 1982: 2, 7, NCJ 80520; Correctional Populations in the
United States, 1996, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of
Justice Statistics, April 1999: 86, NCJ 170013.

2. Ditton, Paula M., and Doris James Wilson, Truth in Sentencing in State
Prisons, Special Report, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau
of Justice Statistics, January 1999: 3, NCJ 170032.

3. The latest figure, for 1997, indicates that 18.6 percent of prisoners released
from State prison leave without correctional supervision (Ditton and Wilson,
Truth in Sentencing, 10). 

4. Ibid., 2.

5. Glaser, Daniel, The Effectiveness of a Prison and Parole System,
Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969; Martinson, Robert, "What Works?--
Questions and Answers About Prison Reform," Public Interest 35 (2) (1974):
22-54; Sechrest, Lee, Susan White, and Elizabeth Brown, The Rehabilitation of
Criminal Offenders: Problems and Prospects, Washington, DC: National
Academy of Sciences, 1979; DiIulio, John, "Reinventing Parole and Probation,"
Brookings Review 15 (2) (1997): 40-42; Citizens' Inquiry on Parole and
Criminal Justice, Report on New York Parole, New York: Citizens' Inquiry,
1974; Petersilia, Joan, and Susan Turner, "Intensive Probation and Parole," in
Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 17, ed. Michael Tonry,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993: 281-335. 

6. The rhetorical point is not the literal fact. A certain proportion of prisoners
do not return to the community. Of the 1.2 million prisoners, a small number
(about 3,300 per year) die in prison as a result of illness or other natural causes,
suicide, execution, or for another reason. Correctional Populations in the United
States, 1996, 95. 


7. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Correctional Populations in the United States,
1996, iii, 9; Snell, Tracy L., Correctional Populations in the United States,
1993, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, October 1995: 12, NCJ 156241.

8. Figure for 1991 calculated from Correctional Populations in the United
States, 1996; figure for 1998 figure is from unpublished Bureau of Justice
Statistics data. 

9. Petersilia, Joan, "Parole and Prisoner Reentry in the United States," in
Prisons, ed. Michael Tonry and Joan Petersilia (Crime and Justice: A Review of
Research, Volume 26), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999: 513.

10. Inciardi, James A., A Corrections-Based Continuum of Effective Drug
Abuse Treatment, Research Preview, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Justice, National Institute of Justice, June 1996, NCJ 152692; and Martin,
Stan, et al., "Three-Year Outcomes of Therapeutic Community Treatment for
Drug-Involved Offenders in Delaware: From Prison to Work Release to
Aftercare," Prison Journal 79 (3) (September 1999): 294-320.

11. See Looking at a Decade of Drug Courts, Drug Court Clearinghouse and
Technical Assistance Project, American University, Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Drug Courts Program
Office, June 1998: 4, NCJ 171140.

12. Rawson, Richard A., Treatment for Stimulant Use Disorders (Treatment
Improvement Protocol [TIP] Series, 33), DHHS Publication No. SMA 99-
3296, Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Center
for Substance Abuse Treatment, 1999.

13. Reforming Sentencing and Corrections for Just Punishment and Public
Safety, Research in Brief, Sentencing and Corrections: Issues for the 21st
Century, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice and Corrections Program Office, September 1999, NCJ 175724.

14. 521 U.S. 346, 1997.

15. Information from the Bureau of Research, Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction. Figure is as of 1999.

16. Boston Police Department, "Operation Cease Fire," unpublished document,
no date (abstract page).


17. Kennedy, David, "Pulling Levers: Getting Deterrence Right," National
Institute of Justice Journal 236 (July 1998): 2-8. 

18. Stuart, Barry, "Circle Sentencing in Canada: A Partnership of the
Community and the Criminal Justice System," International Journal of
Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 20 (2) (Fall 1996): 291-309;
Bazemore, Gordon, "Conferences, Circles, Boards, and Mediations: The 'New
Wave' of Community Justice Decision-making," Federal Probation 61 (2) (June
1997): 25-37; and Stuart, Barry, "Circle Sentencing: Turning Swords Into
Ploughshares," in Restorative Justice: International Perspectives, ed. Burt
Galaway and Joe Hudson, Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press, 1996: 193-
206. 

19. An example is the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Police Family Group
Conferencing program. The report of the NIJ-sponsored evaluation is
"Restorative Policing Experiment: The Bethlehem Pennsylvania Police Family
Group Conferencing Project," by Paul McCold and Benjamin Wachtel, final
report submitted to NIJ, May 1998 (grant no. 95-IJ-CX-0042).

20. Vermont Reparative Probation, "Program Overview," n.p., 1999; and
Vermont Reparative Probation, "Fact Sheet," n.p., 1999.

21. The procedure followed by the Neighborhood Conference Committees is
described in Travis County Neighborhood Conference Committees Training
Manual, Version VI, n.p., June 1999. 

22. Braithwaite, J., Crime, Shame and Reintegration, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994: 55, 81, 102; and Braithwaite, J., "Reintegrative
Shaming, Republicanism, and Policy," Crime and Public Policy, ed. Hugh D.
Barlow, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995: 193-194.

23. See Neighborhood Collective Efficacy--Does It Help Reduce Violence? by
Robert J. Sampson, Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls, Research
Preview, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, April 1998, FS 000203.

---------------------------

Directors' Message

It is by now a commonplace that the number of people under criminal justice
supervision in this country has reached a record high. As a result, the sentencing
policies driving that number, and the field of corrections, where the
consequences are felt, have acquired an unprecedented salience. It is a salience
defined more by issues of magnitude, complexity, and expense than by any
consensus about future directions. 

Are sentencing policies, as implemented through correctional programs and
practices, achieving their intended purposes? As expressed in the movement to
eliminate indeterminate sentencing and limit judicial discretion, on the one hand,
and to radically restructure our retributive system of justice, on the other, the
purposes seem contradictory, rooted in conflicting values. The lack of
consensus on where sentencing and corrections should be headed is thus no
surprise. 

Because sentencing and corrections policies have such major consequences--
for the allocation of government resources and, more fundamentally and
profoundly, for the quality of justice in this country and the safety of its citizens-
-the National Institute of Justice and the Corrections Program Office (CPO) of
the Office of Justice Programs felt it opportune to explore them in depth.
Through a series of Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, begun
in 1998 and continuing through the year 2000, practitioners and scholars
foremost in their field, representing a broad cross-section of points of view,
were brought together to find out if there is a better way to think about the
purposes, functions, and interdependence of sentencing and corrections
policies. 

We are fortunate in having secured the assistance of Michael Tonry, Sonosky
Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School,
and Director, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, as project
director. 

One product of the sessions is this series of papers, commissioned by NIJ and
the CPO as the basis for the discussions. Drawing on the research and
experience of the session participants, the papers are intended to distill their
judgments about the strengths and weaknesses of current practices and about
the most promising ideas for future developments. 

The sessions were modeled on the executive sessions on policing held in the
1980s and 1990s under the sponsorship of NIJ and Harvard's Kennedy
School of Government. Those sessions played a role in conceptualizing
community policing and spreading it. Whether the current sessions and the
papers based on them will be instrumental in developing a new paradigm for
sentencing and corrections, or even whether they will generate broad-based
support for a particular model or strategy for change, remains to be seen. It is
our hope that in the current environment of openness to new ideas, the session
papers will provoke comment, promote further discussion and, taken together,
will constitute a basic resource document on sentencing and corrections policy
issues that will prove useful to State and local policymakers.

Julie E. Samuels
Acting Director
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice 

Larry Meachum
Director
Corrections Program Office
U.S. Department of Justice

---------------------------

The Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections 
Convened the following distinguished panel of leaders in the fields:

Neal Bryant
Senator
Oregon State Senate

Harold Clarke
Director
Department of Correctional Services
State of Nevada

Cheryl Crawford
Deputy Director, Office of Development and Communications
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice

Barbara Damchik-Dykes
Project Coordinator
Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections

Walter Dickey
Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin 
                         
Ronald Earle

District Attorney
Austin, Texas

Tony Fabelo
Director
Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council

Richard S. Gebelein
Superior Court Judge
Wilmington, Delaware

John Gorczyk
Commissioner
Department of Corrections
State of Vermont

Kathleen Hawk Sawyer
Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons
U.S. Department of Justice

Sally T. Hillsman
Deputy Director
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice

Martin Horn
Secretary
Department of Corrections
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Susan M. Hunter
Chief, Prisons Division
National Institute of Corrections
U.S. Department of Justice 

Leena Kurki
Research Associate 
Law School
University of Minnesota
Project Associate
Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections 


John J. Larivee
Chief Executive Officer
Community Resources for Justice

Joe Lehman
Secretary
Department of Corrections
State of Washington

Dennis Maloney
Director
Deschutes County (Oregon) 
Department of Community Justice

Larry Meachum
Director
Corrections Program Office
Office of Justice Programs
U.S. Department of Justice

Mark H. Moore
Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice Policy and Management
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

Norval Morris
Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminology
University of Chicago

Joan Petersilia
Professor of Criminology, 
Law and Society
School of Social Ecology
University of California, Irvine

Kay Pranis
Restorative Justice Planner
Department of Corrections
State of Minnesota

Michael Quinlan
Former Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons 

U.S. Department of Justice 

Chase Riveland
Principal
Riveland Associates

Thomas W. Ross
Superior Court Judge, 
18th Judicial District
Chair, North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission

Dora Schriro
Director
Department of Corrections
State of Missouri

Michael Smith
Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin 

Morris Thigpen
Director
National Institute of Corrections
U.S. Department of Justice

Michael Tonry
Director
Institute of Criminology
University of Cambridge
Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy
University of Minnesota 
Project Director
Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections

Jeremy Travis
Senior Fellow
The Urban Institute
Former Director
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice

Reginald A. Wilkinson
Director

Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
State of Ohio

---------------------------

Jeremy Travis, former Director of the National Institute of Justice, is a Senior
Fellow with The Urban Institute.

This study was supported by cooperative agreement 97-MUMU-K006
between the National Institute of Justice and the University of Minnesota.

Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice. 

The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of
Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and
the Office for Victims of Crime.

This and other NIJ publications can be found at and downloaded from the NIJ
Web site (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij).

NCJ 181413