Washington D.C. Works to Fill a Gap in Treatment for Justice-Involved Individuals

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the Passages program, part of its larger Fatherhood Initiative, aims to help men become more involved parents. The program, instituted in the hopes of reducing recidivism rates and creating stronger male role models in the community, provides participants with job training, emotional support, and the skills they need to be active parents for their families.

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

In rural North Dakota where clinical treatment centers are hard to find, a program called Free Through Recovery "seeks to drive down North Dakota’s prison rates by creating networks of sobriety and support around people on probation and parole." Although local law enforcement claims the program is not an alternative to incarceration, in the short time it has been in operation, it has served over 550 people with many participants securing both housing and work opportunities.

Officials around Pennsylvania who want to reduce recidivism are studying a re-entry program in Lancaster that gives former inmates intensive case management to help them return to society. That includes transitional housing, job interview clothing and workshops on things like personal finance and interviewing skills. It also addresses the small slips that often send someone back to jail by putting the fees many former prisoners owe on hold for six months and helping them tackle bureaucratic challenges that can seem daunting.

The United States' incarcerated population makes up roughly 25% of the world's prisoners, but many are serving short terms and will be released back into society only to be asked to rebuild their life with little to no help or experiences gained during their time in prison. Groups like Sponsors - a program that takes formerly incarcerated adults into nature as part of a reintegration program - are working to change this re-entry process by using the outdoors as a place for former inmates to become reacquainted not just with the world, but also with themselves.

In the United States, the incarcerated feel like they have no voices and their mistakes that led them to jail go unacknowledged. A documentary film spotlights the IF Project, a writing program that encourages female inmates and recently released felons to write down what they would have done to change the path they went on. With police and teachers as mentors, the convicted have support transitioning into society and can reflect on what they can do to change their lives for the better.

In California, once a national innovator in draconian policies to get tough on crime, voters and lawmakers are now innovating in the opposite direction, adopting laws that have released tens of thousands of inmates and are preventing even more from going to prison in the first place.

For 20 years, the Center for Young Women’s Development has been a safe space for thousands of young women ages 16 to 24 who have been incarcerated or are homeless in the San Francisco Bay Area. The center is most recognized for its strategies to give these women opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Compass House provides safety and support for women, many of them newly released from incarceration, who struggle with substance misuse issues or mental illness. The transitional housing program is the first of its kind in a state that is sorely lacking in such services. Peer support and professional counseling and treatment can last a year or more. The women in the program, who are at high risk of homelessness without a refuge like Compass House, pay 30% of their income for rent, with the rest of the costs covered by a state agency.

An array of services in Pima County, Arizona, greets hundreds of people getting released early from jail or helps keep them out of jail in the first place. By providing drug treatment, housing, job assistance, and other help that people need instead of incarceration, the county's Criminal Justice Reform Unit and Jail Population Review Committee saved the county $2 million in jail costs over just part of 2020. Drug use also declined and officials hope to see longer-range benefits in lower recidivism.