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Coming Home For Good:Final Report of the New Jersey Reentry Roundtable |
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Coming Home For Good:Final Report of the New Jersey Reentry Roundtable |
TABLE OF CONTENTS |
Why?
Reentry is virtually universal. Almost all individuals incarcerated in the state of New Jersey — 95 to 97% — will eventually return home. With both the prison population and the per capita incarceration rate having more than quadrupled over the past 25 years, this means that an estimated 70,000 people will be released from state prison over the next five years, with more coming out of jails and juvenile facilities. They return, in large part, to poor and working class urban New Jersey neighborhoods that are already under considerable social and economic strain. With disproportionately high rates of addiction, mental illness, and other serious health problems, as well as, on average, limited education and work experience, returning prisoners must navigate a range of statutory and regulatory restrictions affecting their ability to get and keep employment, find stable housing, stay healthy and reintegrate into their families and communities. At present, most receive little to no preparation for the transition or for community living, and little to no support or assistance after they have been released. Following a growing trend over the past ten years, one third of those released last year had no parole supervision.
All the evidence indicates that, in the face of these challenges, the majority are failing. The most salient indicator of that failure is the recidivism rate: nationally, two thirds of all individuals released from prison are rearrested within three years, and one half of all these arrests occur within the first six months post-release. Last year in New Jersey, forty percent of all admissions to state prison were people who had failed on parole. These failures have, and will continue to have in cumulative numbers, a broad impact on the families and communities to which prisoners return and on New Jersey as a whole. It is now clear that we cannot ensure public safety without addressing what happens to individuals after they are released, and the barriers and opportunities they face to becoming law-abiding and productive citizens.
The financial cost for New Jersey of this widespread failure is high, and will keep growing. Annual appropriations for custody and supervision of individuals convicted of crimes have grown more than 500% over the past 20 years. This is up to three times the growth rate of spending for education, higher education and municipal aid, areas that matter greatly to New Jersey residents, during the same time period. Moreover, the over one billion dollars now spent on corrections and related criminal justice programs does not include the financial impact on counties, municipalities, and families of inmates and victims of crime when reintegration fails. It does not include additional state dollars spent to support the children of incarcerated parents who are in foster care or receiving public assistance. It does not include foregone state tax revenue from incarcerated individuals who are not working and contributing to New Jersey's economy. And it does not reflect the impact on urban revitalization efforts and the state's economic development potential as a whole. As long as we continue with our current approach, these costs will not only not go down, but are likely to keep growing exponentially. New Jersey simply cannot afford not to make a serious effort to reduce reentry failure, particularly in these tough budget years.
Public support for a serious reentry effort is available. New Jerseyans care about these high costs, and they care about public safety. They also believe that preparing prisoners for release is key to ensuring public safety. In a statewide poll of 800 New Jersey residents conducted this summer by the Eagleton Institute's Center for Public Interest Polling, two thirds of respondents expressed the belief that rehabilitative programming to prepare individuals for release was better way to reduce crime than long prison terms. Nearly 90% of respondents would support requiring prisons to provide training, education and real job experiences, as well as drug and alcohol treatment for those who need it. Nearly 75% feel that most former prisoners will continue to need assistance after release in order to lead productive lives, and most support strategies to provide that assistance and remove barriers to success.
It was the goal of the NJRR to be both visionary and practical, to consider both what should be done and what might be accomplished given political, financial, and logistical realities. The recommendations that follow adhere to this goal as well. We have laid out, in Part II, seven core principles that should determine New Jersey's approach to reentry going forward, with the key findings from which they derive and recommendations as to how these principles can be advanced. Three of the NJRR sessions focused on particular issues related to reentry: employment, health, and the specific concerns related to juveniles; in Part III, we present specific recommendations from these sessions and the papers and presentations that informed the NJRR discussion.
In addition to a range of papers prepared on particular reentry-related topics for the NJRR, The Urban Institute, the leading national policy research organization focusing on prisoner reentry and convener of the national Reentry Roundtable, has prepared A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in New Jersey. This comprehensive empirical picture of what reentry looks like in the state, including statistics, maps and reviews of existing policies and programs, is the companion piece to these recommendations, and the source of much of the data included in the findings that follow. In the appendix we include the list of NJRR participants, agendas from the sessions, and the list of presentations and publications which are or will soon be available on the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice website and which will published under separate cover in the future.
These findings and recommendations are made in the context of some overarching challenges, which are not specifically addressed below but must be kept in mind. In order for any change to occur, there must be sufficient political will, which depends in part on greater public awareness and understanding of the issues involved. Many of the ideas within are not new, but the leadership to move them forward has been lacking. It is critical, in light of the highly politicized nature of criminal justice policy, that our policy and programmatic responses be based on sound empirical evidence. Improving data collection and ensuring that new and existing approaches are thoroughly evaluated will be critical to moving a smart agenda forward.
| FINDING: Even within existing budget constraints, periods of incarceration can be used far more effectively to maximize successful reentry. While it is critical that prison facilities be secure and that prisons serve the public's interest in punishment and deterrence, it is as important to public safety that time spent in prison include meaningful preparation for productive and law abiding life outside prison. To a large extent, the investment required to achieve this has not been made. The majority of inmates enter prison with low educational attainment, limited legitimate work experience and job skills, disproportionately poor health and high rates of drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness. Failure to use resources to address these issues and other risk factors while individuals are incarcerated represents a costly missed opportunity to reduce recidivism and improve public health. There is considerable knowledge now about what does work in prison programming, and about successful and promising models being implemented here in New Jersey and in other states; we should act on this knowledge to improve how we use incarceration to achieve better outcomes. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
| FINDING: The transition period from incarceration to community living is critical to the long term goal of achieving the stable reintegration of former prisoners and has in the past received insufficient attention from the broad set of necessary decision-makers and institutional stakeholders. This transition needs to be accepted as a distinct phase spanning at the very minimum the six to nine months prior to release and the six to nine months after release, requiring specific planning and preparation, the establishment of linkages to community supports and, post-release, sufficient resources and supervision in a community setting to prevent recidivism. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about half of all the rearrests that occur within three years of reentry occur in the first six months. Greater investment in the transition period must extend beyond simply supervision to catch people when they do wrong, but must focus on making it possible for people to do right. Part Three of this report contains specific recommendations for pre- and postrelease strategies around particular issues. More general recommendations are below. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
| FINDING: Former prisoners are rightly held responsible for their actions and their role in becoming productive citizens, but they are impeded by too many unnecessary and unproductive legal and regulatory barriers. While public safety dictates certain on-going protections and prohibitions, too many of our laws do not give those who have finished their prison terms a fair opportunity to succeed and do not advance legitimate security interests. Public policy affecting released prisoners should encourage and not prevent productive, pro-social behavior. At present, a broad range of statutes limit the employment opportunities for former prisoners, exclude them from public benefits (including housing assistance and food stamps), limit access to educational loans and grants, restrict voting rights and jury service, and severely curtail driving privileges, among other things. In August, 2003, the American Bar Association (ABA) approved new standards for such "collateral sanctions," which can provide guidance to New Jersey on how to reform its current approach to increase fairness, promote responsibility, and protect the public. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
| FINDING: Particularly given that most prisoners return to a limited number of communities, the absence of an effective reentry strategy harms families and destabilizes neighborhoods. We can better use limited criminal justice resources for post-release support/aftercare and for other recidivism prevention efforts by targeting interventions at the neighborhoods most affected by reentry. Moreover, both the families and the communities to which prisoners return have strengths and resources themselves that are rarely recognized, utilized or respected by the criminal justice system. Building on those strengths and collaborating with potential allies outside the usual suspects should be a part of New Jersey's reentry strategy. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
| FINDING: The cost of maintaining and increasing bed space in state prison facilities has driven up correctional spending in New Jersey at more than twice the rate of the budget as a whole, while funding for programming and treatment has not kept pace, and in many instances has decreased. Particularly in light of the current fiscal crisis, the state must seek to ensure public safety by using criminal justice resources in a more targeted and cost effective way. Cutting the costs associated with incarceration without increasing the risk to the public is a substantial challenge to the state. In the long term, reducing recidivism by handling reentry better will save the state and counties money. In the nearer term, we should look to strategies that represent smart reallocations of resources to less costly alternatives to incarceration. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
| FINDING: Because juveniles are children and not adults, the strategies and systems of juvenile reentry must be distinct from those for adults and should recognize the unique developmental and social dynamics of adolescents. Detailed findings and recommendations to improve juvenile reentry outcomes are included in Section Three. The central recommendations are below. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
The leaders of all these systems should commit to making the needs of young people in the juvenile justice system a priority, and the state should consider statutory changes to catalyze this process (by, for example, proscribing the detention, pre- or postadjudication, of a young person for whom a DYFS placement is deemed the most appropriate setting).2
| FINDING: African Americans and Latinos are vastly disproportionately over-represented in state prisons and juvenile detention facilities, and serious steps should be taken to address this. While the entire state bears the substantial economic and social costs of incarceration/ detention and reentry, the impact is felt most severely by New Jersey's lowincome families and communities of color. Many have come to accept this as normal or inevitable. It is neither, and must be addressed and remedied as a fundamental affront to our state's dignity and decency. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
For adults, DMC has not been considered a problem worthy of significant public attention (except in the context of racial profiling). It should be.4 New Jersey should become a national leader by framing this problem as encompassing both the juvenile justice and adult criminal justice systems. As a first step, the Attorney General, working with other relevant officials, should take the lead in catalyzing a statewide analysis of DMC issues in the adult context, analogous to the one now being conducted in the juvenile context.
Our definition of successful reentry includes steady, legitimate employment and economic self-sufficiency. From the individual's perspective, employment provides necessary financial support for individuals and their families, provides an alternative to criminal activities, and constitutes an important part of individual identity and a source of selfrespect. For parolees, work is also usually a condition of parole. From the state's perspective, employment for former prisoners reduces recidivism, increases state tax revenues, reduces family financial instability and dependency on the public fisc, and increases the economic viability and stability of the communities where former prisoners live.
Finding and keeping a job, however, is one of the most difficult challenges facing individuals leaving incarceration. The majority of individuals returning home after being incarcerated entered prison with low education and literacy rates, limited job-specific skills and little prior work experience. The average education level of state prison inmates is 6th grade in reading and slightly lower than that in math. Further, research suggests that time spent in prison can reduce lifetime wage expectancy through the loss of work experience during peak earning years and the diminishment of work related skills. Time spent in prison also weakens the community-based social connections that can provide links to employment and provide the social support that makes employment possible. The negative social networks that are accessible in prison — gangs — can fill the gap when individuals are distanced from their community ties. As noted above, returning prisoners face a host of legal barriers that permanently limit their access to particular jobs and sectors of employment, and make getting and keeping a job difficult. Even in sectors where legal barriers do not exist, many employers remain reluctant to take a chance on hiring individuals with criminal records, and tough economic times mean job opportunities for the least desirable workers are even more limited. Most individuals leaving prison return to neighborhoods in urban communities far from the suburban areas where most job opportunities lie.
It is in the context of these substantial challenges that we make the findings and recommendations below.
Pre-Release Preparation
| 1. Educational and vocational education programming in prison is a fundamental part of preparing prisoners for successful reintegration. This was the basic conclusion of the Corrections Education Task Force of the State Employment and Training Commission six years ago and is now seconded by the New Jersey Reentry Roundtable. Educational attainment is inversely linked to recidivism, and individuals without a sound basic education and marketable skills are unlikely to succeed, even at the most basic level, in New Jersey's highly competitive job market. As noted above, the average educational attainment level of state prison inmates is about 6th grade, which means that half are performing at an even lower level. Currently, individuals in the adult system who are under 20 year of age (less than 2 percent of the population) and who do not possess a high school degree or G.E.D. certificate must receive an appropriate secondary education while in prison, and the DOC provides pre-secondary and secondary education for them, within the constraints of the correctional environment. No education is mandated, however, for individuals over 20 who lack basic education or vocational skills, and while remedial classes and G.E.D. preparation are available at every state prison facility, along with some pre-vocational and vocational programs, resources are extremely limited. The DOC's passage rates for the G.E.D. compare favorably with passage rates in the general population, but the opportunity to prepare for and take the test is not broad. Less than 25% of the prison population participates annually in educational or vocational programs. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1B. Pre-secondary and secondary education on demand. As a long term goal, New Jersey should be able to provide basic education on demand for inmates of any age who have less than a high school diploma. Our goal should be to expand resources and space allocation to provide the same program availability that currently extends to inmates under 20 to those over 20 who want to continue their education to at least the high school level. Literacy, a middle school-level education, a G.E.D. are not considered luxury items in New Jersey, and the hard work required to achieve these goals for individuals with a history of academic failure represents the kind of work that should be encouraged and that the public supports. All of the limited education resources in the adult system are currently weighted toward inmates under 21, who make up a very small portion of the total inmate population, leaving behind older inmates who are often more motivated to change their lives. Interim steps to this goal are possible and should be taken. They include: a) providing sufficient staff to provide adult basic education on demand for all inmates, regardless of age, with an education level below ninth grade; b) increasing the number of available GED preparation slots at each institution; c) ensuring, as part of transition planning, that individuals who want to continue their education after release have those resources identified for them and, where practical, that they are registered for classes prior to their release. Individuals who want to use time at a halfway house to continue their education should be encouraged to do so.
1C. The prison population should be incorporated fully into New Jersey's workforce development strategy. We support the recommendation of the Corrections Education Task Force that the State Employment and Training Commission (SETC), working with the DOC, should take responsibility for facilitating interagency planning and involvement in providing employment, education and training services to prisoners and ex-prisoners. This makes good sense: the SETC, with representatives from multiple state agencies, is charged with preparing adult New Jerseyans to succeed in the labor market, ensuring that employers in the state have a skilled workforce, and coordinating state resources to achieve those goals. Individuals involved in the criminal justice system should be specifically included in this task. It is particularly important that the Department of Education and the Department of Labor be full partners in providing education and job readiness programs, supplementing DOC's expertise in providing education in a correctional setting with resources and strategies designed for the broader New Jersey workforce. The Department of Labor is funding three "workplace literacy labs" at three prison facilities, a promising step. In addition, though, we suggest the development of a strategy to have the One Stop Career Centers reach in to serve inmates preparing for release.
1D. Increase Post-Secondary Education Opportunities. Postsecondary education has been shown to have a strong positive effect on post-release success, but since federal law put Pell grants out of reach for prisoners and individuals with felony convictions, opportunities for continuing education during incarceration past the high school level are almost non-existent in New Jersey, as elsewhere around the country. Given the limited availability of funds, and space for programs, we recommend that New Jersey create greater opportunities for post-secondary distance learning, and greater involvement by New Jersey's community colleges and public and private universities. In New York, for example, a consortium of universities created a degree-granting college program at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, at little cost to the state, which served primarily prisoners but was also available to corrections officers and civilian staff seeking to earn college credits.
1E. Create a business advisory council for the vocational and job-readiness programs to ensure that the programs are providing the kind of experience and training that employers need. The Department of Corrections has worked with employers around the state to host job fairs inside institutions to begin orienting inmates to employment opportunities (and orienting some employers to potential employees). Employers can also be involved even earlier to help shape vocational training and job readiness programs to best meet the needs of the employment sectors most accessible to individuals leaving prison.
| 2. Employment inside prison should prepare individuals for employment in the community. Prison work experience, like any prior work experience, can play a role in facilitating reintegration. Research has found, in particular, that prison industry jobs and work release programs, which provide work environments similar to those individuals will face outside prison, can reduce recidivism and increase employment rates post-release. At present, there are not enough jobs for inmates who can be working: about 1800 work for DEPTCOR, New Jersey's correctional industry program, another 1250 engage in public service work through the Community Labor Assistance Program, and others have service jobs within the prison. Individuals in halfway houses have greater access to community jobs, and at least one new program will specifically prepare residents for automobile industry jobs. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
2B. Consider participation in the federal Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP): Participating in PIECP, which would require legislative action, involves expanding prison industries to include work for private firms, usually within prison facilities; inmates get paid comparable wages to civilian workers, with deductions taken for room and board, taxes, child support, etc.; currently, 38 states participate. The program is not uncontroversial, due to, among other reasons, union objections and concerns about unfair competition for businesses and potential exploitation of prisoners. Still, the possibility of creating a New Jersey modification of this program which would not only provide a quality work experience during incarceration but also be directly connected to post-release employment, involving a public-private partnership with businesses and unions, makes it worth serious exploration.
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3. Inmates should plan for post-release employment prior to their release. As noted above, employment is part of successful reintegration. While it is difficult for most individuals leaving prison to secure a job before they've left DOC custody, particularly as most do not transition through halfway houses in the communities to which they'll return, planning for post-release employment can and should take place in advance. At present, aside from the "Going Home" federal grant pilot program, this does not yet happen in any systematic way. Job fairs and resume writing classes are available at some institutions, for prisoners nearing their release dates, but DOC staff are constrained by time, resources and geographic distance between the institutions and home communities of prisoners from providing more comprehensive pre-release planning or concrete links to job opportunities or community-based employment assistance. Individuals often arrive back on the streets without even the identification documents needed to apply for work or the transitional support of public assistance.
We have suggested above that the State Employment and Training Commission become central to facilitating the connection between prisoners and former prisoners and the public and private resources they need to find and keep jobs; part of this work should be the employment preparation piece of discharge planning. New Jersey should make use of the One Stop Career Center system to assist with comprehensive vocational assessment, identification of and application for public benefits and sources of funding to pay for training and placement, and actual linkage with employers prior to release for job interviews post-release. This kind of approach is successfully in place in Texas, where Project RIO, a collaboration between the Texas Workforce Commission and the Department of Corrections provides job preparation and placement for inmates before and after their release. Even without such an innovation, the core steps below should be part of a discharge planning protocol. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
3B. Pre-release benefit application. Prisoners should be able to apply for public benefits prior to their release, which can provide some transitional economic stability in the critical immediate post-release period and also ensure access to training and other employment assistance. Food stamp recipients, for example, are eligible for federal employment and training dollars, and individuals with disabilities can qualify for employment assistance through the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. As discussed in more detail below, individuals with felony convictions for drug offenses are banned from receiving public assistance (TANF and General Assistance) and Food Stamps unless they have enrolled in or have completed licensed residential drug treatment. We recommend that New Jersey follow other states and lift the felony drug ban for food stamps and TANF/GA.
3C. Pre-release linkages. Discharge planning for prisoners should include concrete linkages to post-release employment opportunities, either in the form of a job interview or an appointment with or specific referral to an employment intermediary. As noted above, on-going involvement of the SETC and the Department of Labor would make this feasible.
| 4. Laws and regulations should encourage and not hinder exoffender employment. A complicated network of laws affecting primarily those who have been convicted of indictable offenses, in some cases specifically those associated with drugs and in others with the general category of "moral turpitude," constrain the ability of individuals released from prison to become financially stable through legitimate means and thus increase the likelihood of recidivism. While some specific limitations on employment are clearly warranted to protect the public, too many of the existing laws and regulations serve to make reintegration more difficult without advancing public safety. For example, individuals with criminal convictions are statutorily barred for life from about 22 different categories of jobs; a greater number of jobs require disclosure of criminal convictions and mandatory background checks, which effectively function as statutory bars. Notably, individuals are not routinely informed when considering plea agreements of the additional legal consequences that may follow from certain convictions, and judges do not have the discretion to tailor these collateral sanctions to the individual being sentenced. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
4B. Limit collateral sanctions: As a general principle, New Jersey should seek to eliminate collateral statutory penalties and disqualifications that inhibit reintegration and do not address reasonable public safety concerns. The ABA has recommended that no collateral sanction, including occupational disqualifications, be imposed on persons convicted of certain offenses unless "the conduct constituting that particular offense provides so substantial a basis for imposing the sanction that the legislature cannot reasonably contemplate any circumstance in which imposing the sanction would not be justified." One place to start would be by removing the blanket exclusion from any state employment of anyone with a criminal conviction of the third degree or higher, which provides no avenues for individualized decision making or consideration of rehabilitation. More immediately, New Jersey can empower sentencing judges to provide individualized relief from particular legal restrictions, at sentencing or any time thereafter.
4C. Extend the Rehabilitation of Convicted Offenders Act to provide for "certificates of rehabilitation" to enable exoffenders to earn relief from legal restrictions. Certificates of rehabilitation are official documents that recognize that an individual has been rehabilitated, with the effect of restoring rights and lifting restrictions on licenses and benefits. Arizona, California, Nevada, New York and Illinois all provide for this kind of certificate. Currently, New Jersey's law allows relief from any licensing discrimination upon certification from the parole board or supervising probation officer that the individual has achieved a degree of rehabilitation such that "engaging in the proposed employment would not be incompatible with the welfare of society." The reach of this certification should be extended to provide relief from all of the applicable collateral sanctions, and should also be available to individuals not under supervision, or no longer under supervision, provided that they can make the requisite showing of rehabilitation.
4D. Make it possible for ex-offenders who are noncustodial parents to fulfill their child support obligations. New Jersey should adopt a statewide policy to suspend the accrual of child support arrears during a period of incarceration; currently, policy in this area varies county by county. Experts know that the significant debt that piles up while an individual is incarcerated not only will not, in most cases, get paid, but will also serve to deter payment of on-going support for and active involvement with the children involved. Suspending the accrual of on-going support during incarceration should not affect any arrears owed prior to incarceration or the states ability to reach the assets of convicted offenders. We also recommend that New Jersey lower the maximum wage garnishment level for low-income workers, currently taking up to 65% of wages, or place this maximum garnishment on a sliding scale, relative to income. For individuals taking low-wage, legitimate jobs, sometimes for the first time, the substantial garnishment leaves them with little money and serves as disincentive for legitimate work, exactly the opposite message the state should be sending to returning prisoners.
4E. Address driver's license suspension as a barrier to employment. In New Jersey, having a valid driver's license can be critical to obtaining and keeping a job. Many of the employment sectors providing good opportunities for entry-level positions either require a license or are inaccessible to public transportation. While there are almost 400 ways to lose a license in New Jersey, certain types are more common and are most likely to impact reentry success. The majority of suspensions in New Jersey are imposed not for dangerous driving or other actions posing a threat to public safety, but rather for financial reasons, such as failure to pay insurance surcharges, court fines, child support and parking tickets. In addition, under the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act, anyone with a drug-related conviction receives a 6 to 24 month suspension. It is estimated that most individuals leaving prison have suspended licenses. Two immediate improvements would be:
| 5. Employers should be encouraged to hire individuals who have been released from prison. One of the significant obstacles to employment for individuals leaving prison is simply the unwillingness of employers to hire them. A criminal record signals untrustworthiness to most employers, who generally seek to minimize risk and exposure to their firms in making hiring decisions. This bias has increased after 9/11, particularly as criminal background information (correct and incorrect) has become more widely available through public and private reporting services. As potential employees, regardless of individual qualifications, exoffenders as a group are by all accounts the most disfavored, even among other low-skilled workers such as long-term public assistance recipients. There is no systematic information from employers who have hired former prisoners, however, that they are bad employees, and most reports suggest the contrary, particularly when there has been post-employment support from an intermediary. While some financial incentives such as tax credits and bonding are available to employers who hire former prisoners, these programs are underutilized; workforce development providers and employers indicate that while these programs can "sweeten the pot" for those already inclined to hire from this population, they do not tend to help convince the unwilling. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
5B. Involve employers in development of job training and job readiness programs (inside as well as outside). As noted above, one way to encourage employers to hire former prisoners is ensure that the individuals have the qualifications that employers want.
5C. Create an employment intermediary serving needs of employers and former prisoners. Building on the broad range of expertise in New Jersey and elsewhere, New Jersey should pilot an employment intermediary that specifically serves individuals returning from incarceration. Existing models suggest key components of such an entity, including the provision of transitional (in some cases first) jobs, additional job training and skills building, job placement and continuing involvement with employer and employee during the first year of employment. Additional components would include providing help to employers with accessing available incentives like the federal bonding program, the Work Opportunity Tax Credits, and On the Job Training funds.
5D. Protect against unlawful discrimination: The Division on Civil Rights of the Department of Law and Public Safety should clarify that discrimination solely on the basis of arrest or conviction, because of its disparate impact on minorities, can constitute a violation of New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. New Jersey should also consider following the lead of other states and explicitly barring discrimination against individuals solely on the basis of an arrest or conviction unless there are job-related reasons to do so or the applicant poses a direct threat to public safety.
5E. Extend the protections regarding use of public criminal history information to use of privately obtained criminal history. State regulations make criminal records available to individuals and nongovernmental entities for hiring purposes, but any employer using that information to disqualify someone from a job must provide notice and opportunity to confirm or deny the accuracy of the information, and a reasonable period of time to correct the record before any final determination. New Jersey should extend these basic protections when employers use criminal history information provided by private background check companies or credit reporting services to disqualify a potential employee.
5F. Criminal justice supervision should facilitate and not hinder employment. Individuals on parole or probation are generally required to get a job. The actual conditions of supervision, however, often serve to disrupt employment, frustrating both employers and their employees. Reporting requirements can cause individuals under supervision to miss work regularly, and visits to the job site by armed officers can scare customers and clients and other workers, stigmatize the supervised individual, and disrupt the workplace. It should be the goal and practice of supervising officers to ensure that individuals under their supervision are good employees and not an extra burden to employers. The presence of supervision may actually convince employers to take a chance with an ex-offender, but not if doing so harms their businesses. Parole officers should be evaluated on how many of those under their supervision have obtained and kept steady employment.
| 6. Community-based and faith-based organizations can and should play a vital role in ensuring the reintegration of former prisoners, including getting and keeping jobs. As noted above, all reentry is local: individuals will ultimately return home to New Jersey neighborhoods and will either succeed or fail at reintegration in those places. If they are to succeed, local resources and support system for individuals and their families have to be available, and must be prepared to address the specific challenges faced by those who have been involved with the criminal justice system. At the same time, former prisoners are rarely a sought-after client group: worries about safety and security, the difficulty of adequately addressing the needs of this population, fear of being stigmatized by association with former prisoners have served to limit the willingness of organizations to serve, or identify as serving this population. More and more groups that work with low-income populations, however, are realizing that many of the people they serve or are in their communities have criminal records that include periods of incarceration. Most do not have specific expertise in the area. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
6B. Bolster existing community capacity to work with returning prisoners and their families: Community and faith based organizations in areas with large numbers of returning prisoners need additional orientation, training and support to respond to the specific needs of individuals with criminal records. Particularly in the employment and training area, we need to insure that these groups get the benefits of information and resources developed by national intermediaries such as Public/Private Ventures, Inc., and the National H.I.R.E. Network at the Legal Action Center.
6C. Engage community and faith-based groups with prisoners prior to release, and fund them to participate. The DOC should increase opportunities for groups based in the communities where individuals will be released to "reach in" to the institutions engage with inmates prior to their release, and include funding for such approaches in grant requests and in allocating resources for reentry planning. Expanding use of community-based organizations adds community-level expertise and also helps put a resource network for individuals in place before they return home. Few organizations will be able to afford to take advantage of such opportunities without funding, and ensuring that they are paid for their services matters. This model is already underway on a limited basis to serve prisoners with HIV/AIDS.
6D. Integrate community-based organizations into place-based solutions. New neighborhood level strategies targeting individuals released from incarceration should capitalize on the experience and expertise of existing organizations with programs of proven effectiveness.
A definition of successful reentry must include receiving regular medical care and management of chronic and communicable diseases, getting and staying clean and sober, and, for individuals living with mental illness, having their conditions stabilized, treated and monitored such that they can become productive members of the community. The achievement of these goals by returning prisoners has major public health implications. The prison population in New Jersey has a disproportionate incidence of health problems. Of the individuals released from prison in 2002 for whom data was available, 18 percent had at least one chronic condition, such as asthma, diabetes or hypertension, and 10 percent were diagnosed with at least one communicable disease, including AIDS and HIV, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases and Hepatitis B and C. Approximately 3 percent of the 2002 releasees were diagnosed as HIV positive, about nine times the prevalency in the general population in New Jersey. The prevalency for women was even greater: 6.8 percent of female prison inmates in 2000, for example, were diagnosed as HIV positive. Of the 2002 release cohort, 11 percent had been diagnosed with a mental illness, but the actual percentage may be considerably higher; approximately 16 percent of New Jersey inmates have been identified as having mental health problems, with more than that undiagnosed. Over 50 percent (some estimates place the actual percentage at 75 to 80%) were assessed to have a substance abuse problem. An indeterminate but believed to be growing percentage are dually diagnosed with mental health and substance abuse disorders.
While the release of so many individuals with serious health problems represents a major public health challenge, experts regard the period of incarceration as an important public health opportunity to prevent, screen for, and treat chronic and communicable diseases and behavioral health problems. It is costly but possible to provide better diagnosis and treatment inside correctional facilities. More difficult, perhaps, is ensuring that the public health investment made while individuals are incarcerated is not lost by the failure to adequately prepare for and coordinate their release or by the failure to provide adequate access to services in the community. Health care and treatment is very expensive, costly to institutions, public agencies, community providers and individuals, a problem that looms particularly large in the current fiscal climate. Issues of interagency coordination, which impact the continuity of care, matter a lot in the health context and the barriers posed by transitioning individuals between health care and treatment delivery systems inside and outside prison walls have proven particularly intractable in New Jersey, as elsewhere around the country.
We recognize that the challenge of providing access to adequate healthcare in New Jersey extends far beyond the context of reentry. Nationally, the number of people without any health insurance has grown. New Jersey has cut back on Family Care and other options for individuals ineligible for Medicaid or Medicare and without employer-provided coverage. At the same time, given the concentration of serious health and behavioral health problems among returning prisoners, and the larger public health consequences, particularly for the low-income, mostly African-American and Latino, chronically underserved communities to which most prisoners return, we cannot afford the substantial costs of an inadequate response. The recommendations below cannot and are not intended to address every aspect of healthcare and treatment provision for individuals before and after their release from prison. Best practices and standards for the provision of care have been developed and defined by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and other groups. We highlight here key areas of concern and policy and programming ideas with regard to reentry.
Pre-Release Preparation
| 1. Comprehensive health and behavioral health assessment and screening at intake, during incarceration and as part of transition planning is critical to preparing prisoners to reintegrate successfully and to maximizing the public health opportunity presented by incarceration and reentry. Health problems, particularly substance abuse disorders, are the expectation not the exception for individuals going into and coming out of prison, and these problems will impact not only individual outcomes upon release but also the health, stability, and financial well-being of the families and neighborhoods to which prisoners return. Proper screening and assessment makes appropriately matched, and therefore cost-effective, treatment possible, but also clarifies the opportunities for primary and secondary prevention strategies, leading to long-term health care cost savings for the state. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1B. Education about HIV testing and testing must be offered at intake, during incarceration and prior to release. Rates of known HIV infection among prisoners are alarmingly high, but may seriously underestimate the actual infection rates because not all inmates have been tested. It is important both for the individuals and their families and New Jersey as whole that inmates receive education about the importance of knowing their HIV status and that testing be readily available upon request. Under the consent decree in Doe v. Fauver, the DOC is required to provide these services; an assessment of current adherence to the decree should be undertaken, with particular attention to the education and training of inmates and staff and the medical management of inmates.
1C. All inmates should be screened for Hepatitis C, informed of their status, and receive appropriate treatment. Recent litigation has raised the profile of this issue in New Jersey, as in the rest of the country, and a response is being developed. Particularly in the context of reentry, testing, and treatment, for Hepatitis C must be a priority.
1D. Develop information sharing protocols, consistent with state and federal regulations, to give public and private agencies treating the same individual in different settings better access to the information needed for good clinical decision-making. At present, individuals moving from the community, through the criminal justice system, and back to the community again, sometimes via halfway houses or private treatment facilities are treated not just by different health care providers but different health care systems. Ensuring that all treatment providers can have access to existing clinically relevant medical information about a patient ensures better treatment and continuity of care and also saves resources by avoiding costly duplication of assessments.
| 2. New Jersey needs increased treatment capacity within correctional settings to respond to substance abuse disorders, mental illness and individuals with co-occurring disorders. While the number of addiction treatment beds in New Jersey prison facilities has grown considerably over the past ten years, treatment capacity remains insufficient to meet the overwhelming need. Currently only about 8 to 12 percent of New Jersey inmates receive addiction treatment, although an estimated 75 to 80 percent have substance abuse disorders. Given resource constraints, only inmates with the highest addiction severity levels are targeted for treatment, and still may not receive it if a therapeutic community bed does not become available far enough in advance for them to complete the treatment program before their release. Individuals with lower addiction severity levels will receive no treatment. Inmates with co-occurring mental illness, particularly those who need psychiatric medication, as well as individuals incarcerated for sexual assault or arson charges, are usually ineligible for addiction treatment. Nationally, research has shown that individuals with substance abuse disorders are the most likely to be reincarcerated, and will serve longer and longer sentences. As noted above, cautious estimates place the prevalency of mental health problems in the prison population at 16 to 17 percent; both data collection and treatment resources have increased in recent years as the result of a consent decree in C.F. v. Terhune, a class action lawsuit challenging the treatment of prisoners with mental illness. Mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment services are currently entirely separate, inhibiting coordinated treatment for the dually-diagnosed. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
2B. Ensure that addiction services are of high quality. The Division of Addiction Services' Advisory Committee on Quality Standards for Addiction Treatment should focus on improving the quality of addiction services in preparation for reentry. All treatment programs serving individuals under criminal justice supervision should be licensed by the state. This is important not only to ensure high quality but also to facilitate application for Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and General Assistance post-release; currently, individuals with drug-related convictions can only qualify for benefits if they have completed or are enrolled in a treatment program licensed by the state.
2C. Institute better data collection to better design programs. Current data collection, particularly regarding addiction and dual diagnosis, while better than it has been in the past, should still be improved, if treatment resources are to be allocated most effectively to different types of treatment responses.
2D. Improve cross-training for correctional staff on medical issues and therapeutic concerns and for medical staff on security needs. Disjunction and lack of understanding and communication between correctional and medical staff can lead to disagreements on how inmates with medical needs are treated and how when treatment will be delivered. This can lead to inconsistency in treatment, poor coordination in preparation for release, and inappropriate responses to inmate behavior. The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Rutgers and other state educational resources should be enlisted to create appropriate training programs for correctional staff as well as parole and probation officers.
2E. The mental health and substance abuse treatment systems within the prison system should be integrated: Integration within prisons presents particular challenges at present because mental health and substance abuse treatment services are provided by different contractors for the DOC, neither of which continue to provide treatment once individuals are released. The substance abuse treatment programs do not serve individuals with concurrent serious mental health diagnoses, and those in the treatment programs with milder mental health problems don't get those problems assessed and treated. Integration of the treatment systems within prisons would lead to better assessment and better treatment.
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3. All inmates need discharge preparation and planning
specifically addressing health needs. The lack of coordination
and planning for release around health and treatment needs
is a major obstacle to successful reentry. The systems
providing care and treatment to individuals inside prisons,
which are themselves disjunctive, and those on the outside
are entirely independent of each other. Multiple service
providers around the state, as well as various divisions of
the Department of Health and Senior Services and the
Department of Human Services, and county level social
service agencies are involved in providing and paying for
post-release care, each with different rules and protocols.
Currently, individuals cannot apply for the public benefits
to cover their health care needs, or basic financial support,
until they are released, and then have to try to get the
information they'll need to apply from outside. Doctors on
the inside are unwilling to provide long term prescriptions
for individuals who will no longer be their patients once
they return home, but doctors on the outside may not be
available to see them until after their prescriptions have run
out. The disruption of care that results can have serious
health repercussions, particularly for those with complicated
health care needs, needing medication for a chronic or
communicable disease or to stabilize a mental health
condition. Coordinated case planning and case
management are needed.
The DOC and the Division of Mental Health Services recently commissioned the Center for Mental Health Services and Criminal Justice Research at Rutgers to complete a study on the need for and cost of reentry planning for inmates with mental health problems, part of the compliance required under the C.F. v. Terhune consent decree. The study included a proposed plan matching three program tiers with identified groups of special needs inmates, designated by need-risk levels. Implementation of this plan will be important for this segment of the reentering population, but strategies for all inmates are needed. The DOC and the Department of Health and Senior Services have also run a CDC-funded transition program for inmates living with HIV and AIDS, and created workable models of pre-release planning involving community-based service and treatment agencies that could, in theory, be adapted to help inmates with other health concerns. Federal funding for this initiative is, unfortunately, running out, and simply keeping the program operational, much less expanding it, represents a challenge. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
3B. Create a protocol to establish public benefit eligibility or reactivate cases prior to release. The Department of Human Services should work with the DOC to develop a workable pre-release eligibility pathway, such that an eligibility determination is made prior to release and benefits case can be immediately activated upon release. The approach must solve a set of barriers that have so far proven difficult to address, including the fact that individuals cannot qualify to receive benefits like Medicaid, Social Security, and the AIDS Drug Distribution Program while they are incarcerated and that benefit enrollment is usually accomplished through the counties, and individuals are often incarcerated outside of the county where they will return. These are logistical and bureaucratic hurdles, but are not insoluble, and the agencies involved should commit to solving them. As an interim measure, to facilitate post-release application, all inmates should be provided a copy of the their medical records upon release, regardless of their ability to pay.
3C. Provide for medical appointments, sufficient medication and a bridging prescription in preparation for release: At minimum, discharge planning should include ensuring that an inmate with medical needs is connected with a specific medical care provider, preferably with an appointment made prior to release; providing at least two weeks of any needed medication, with an additional prescription that can be filled in the event of delay in connecting with a medical care provider. Clearly, much of the effectiveness of this strategy will depend on whether individuals will be able to qualify for the benefits that can pay for care, and that they can otherwise gain access to providers in the community.
3D. Involve families in discharge planning: Prisoners' families (however defined) can and should play a role in preparation for release. Particularly where serious health problems are at issue, including recovery from addiction, we should be taking advantage of the family as support system and "aftercare" provider, and preparing them to serve those extremely challenging roles. Above (see Central Finding #2) we have recommended that the state begin developing a strategy to incorporate families into the reentry process by first assessing their current role within the criminal justice system, and how they are treated by the various agencies involved. Part of acting on that assessment will include identifying points, such as the planning phase pre-reentry, at which family members can and should be incorporated.
3E. Increase the number of Mutual Agreement Program (MAP) beds and other targeted transitional community placements. MAP provides community-based residential alcohol and drug treatment for assessed inmates and parolees, as well as other New Jersey residents; there are only 160 MAP beds for this population, 40 for inmates and 120 for parolees, far too few in light of the overwhelming need. New Jersey needs to increase the number of specialized halfway houses providing evidence-based treatment for individuals with addiction disorders, mental health problems, and dual diagnoses.
| 4. Community-based health care and treatment resources must be available for returning prisoners if individual health and public health gains made during incarceration are not to be lost. Anecdotally, it appears that for many individuals involved in the criminal justice system, access to health care in prison may represent an improvement over what has been available to them in the community. One reason for the disproportionate prevalencies of various chronic and communicable diseases in the prison population is simply that a disproportionate number come from communities, predominantly low-income African-American and Latino, with limited health care resources. New Jersey faces a crisis of health care accessibility and affordability that includes but extends far beyond the reentering population and, consequently, extends beyond the scope of the NJRR. We note, however, that former prisoners, who are as a group sicker than the general population, face particular barriers to getting care after their release, for reasons that include their financial instability and lack of health benefits, their geographic isolation, health care providers' fears about safety, and ex-offender ineligibility for benefits. Some of these barriers can be addressed. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
4B. Ensure that reimbursement rates for community programs providing drug and mental health treatment reflect the actual cost of providing treatment: One of the limiting factors affecting the availability of treatment resources is the amount that community providers are paid by the criminal justice referring agencies for the treatment they provide. To the extent that this amount does not cover costs, providers will be unwilling to reserve bed space in residential programs or provide services to parolees and others.
4C. New Jersey should opt out of the "felony drug ban" for public assistance eligibility. As noted above, under New Jersey's implementation of welfare reform, the Work First program, individuals with drug-related convictions are subject to a lifetime ineligibility from receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), General Assistance (GA) and Food Stamps, unless they have completed or are enrolled in a licensed residential treatment program. With access to licensed treatment, both inside and outside prison, extremely limited, the ban has a substantial effect on the 38 percent of returning offenders with drug convictions, cutting them off from basic transitional economic support at the point when they are most vulnerable. For those with health and mental health problems, and for individuals with addiction disorders awaiting treatment, the economic instability increases the risk of deterioration or relapse, and recidivism. Federal law allows states to opt out of the drug ban, and about twelve states, including New York, have done so. Eligibility for these programs also means eligibility for other supportive services which can help individuals get back on their feet.
4D. New Jersey should consider seeking a federal waiver under Section 1115 of the Social Security Act to expand Medicaid eligibility to non-disabled adults, to leverage additional federal funds to target high risk populations, including but not limited to ex-offenders. While non-disabled adults are not eligible for Medicaid benefits, even if they meet the income guidelines, the federal Department of Health and Human Services can grant demonstration waivers for states to receive matching funds for covering otherwise ineligible populations as part of a demonstration program. The state could create such a program to target a subset of the currently ineligible population that is at high risk for chronic and communicable diseases, and while the state would have to fund such an initiative in part, the federal government would contribute half of the cost. This approach may not be feasible in the current fiscal climate, but should be considered as a way to leverage additional federal funds for health care in New Jersey.
| 5. Parolees with substance abuse disorders needing treatment or relapse prevention services should not be reincarcerated for failing drug tests. Currently, a technical violation for failing a drug test can result in parole revocation and reincarceration. If the underlying cause of this violation is a continuing substance abuse disorder, reincarceration is neither an appropriate nor a cost-effective solution, particularly if scarce in-prison treatment resources are not available during the nine to twelve month reincarceration period. A smart reinvestment strategy for New Jersey would be to cease returning parolees to prison as a response to evidence of addiction or relapse and to pay instead for mandatory drug treatment, using the lessons learned, and potentially even the model implemented by New Jersey's drug courts. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
5B. Change policy and practice and evaluate the results: New Jersey can reduce its prison population, and, if the numbers are substantial enough, which they appear to be, the cost of incarceration to the state by choosing not to return parolees to prison for failed drug tests, but to mandate them into treatment instead. We don't know if this will achieve other important outcomes: increased public safety, lower crime and victimization rates, lowered long term recidivism and long term cost savings. The only way to find out is to try, and measure results rigorously.
Young people returning from secure confinement (whether pre-trial detention or post-adjudication in a Juvenile Justice Commission facility) face all the barriers confronting adults leaving prison — stigma, lack of employment and housing, health problems, addiction, difficultly accessing needed services, temptation from former neighborhood influences — and others: the need to enroll in an appropriate school or training program, frequent reliance on other state systems whose performance is less than ideal (child welfare, mental health, et al.), and even greater need than adults for supportive families. Despite these deep needs, young people too often leave secure confinement without the sort of transitional services and supports necessary to maximize their opportunity for success. As a result, recidivism rates are high, family reintegration often fails, and too many young people end up either back in secure confinement or in the adult penal system. The findings and recommendations below come in the context of this daunting background. In addition, though, we emphasize that the basic principles outlined in Part I — i.e., beginning preparation for reentry at entry into the system, managing the transition back home, removing barriers, supporting neighborhoods and families — apply in the juvenile context as well as the adult.
| 1. Connecting juveniles returning from secure placement with, at minimum, one caring adult willing to play a responsible role in the young person's life is essential to the young person's reintegration and future success. Ideally, this person would be a parent, but the in the reality of many kids caught up in the juvenile justice system, that parental support will not available. Other relatives, or another adult who loves the young person and whom the young person trusts can that play that role. Obviously, policy cannot bring into existence a caring adult, or make a supportive family. The state can, however, make more concerted efforts to maintain and strengthen existing family support while a young person is detained, and provide support to families after release to improve the young person's chance of success. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1B. The Juvenile Justice Commission's Division of Juvenile Parole and Transition Services should consider adopting a deeply family-centered approach to juvenile reentry, building on the learning from the La Bodega de la Familia model developed in New York's Lower East Side by Family Justice, Inc. (recently honored with a prestigious Kennedy School/Ford Foundation Innovations in Government Award). The JJC has begun meeting with Family Justice and is designing an operational partnership on both the policy and programmatic levels, a promising development. Family-based treatment programs with records of success, such as multi-systemic therapy and functional family therapy, should also be employed to address the frequent dysfunction in the families to which many detained young people return.
| 2. The multiple public systems that are, or should be, involved in detained juveniles' lives should work in partnership with each other. At present, numerous young people are caught in the middle as the systems play bureaucratic "hot potato" with them. The most significant unworkable institutional relationships here are between the JJC and the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS); the JJC and the DHS divisions tasked to provide mental and behavioral health services to young people; and between DYFS and the family courts, resulting in judges' inability to access DYFS placements for young people they believe should be placed in them. The results of this inter-systemic disjunction are manifold. Young people are inappropriately left in secure facilities awaiting DYFS placements. They often don't receive necessary treatment and other necessary services while in a secure placement, or awaiting one. The JJC has ended up trying to develop its own parallel system of mental health services, although not institutionally well suited nor statutorily mandated to take on this task, because DHS does not provide desperately needed services to many JJC clients. These systems serving youth must be better integrated to respond to the needs of young people involved in the criminal justice system. |
RECOMMENDATIONS:
