Back to “Life after Incarceration” Homepage
Returning Citizens
When you are a returning citizen, you are finding your bearings and re-establishing your life. This is difficult in any circumstance, but our current justice and legal system is not formatted in a way to allow people who have been previously incarcerated to succeed.
Every year, 600,00 people are released from state and federal prison. It is estimated that there are 19 million Americans with a felony record. There are currently over 44,000 laws, policies, and sanctions that target this population, limiting access to employment, housing, family interaction, and civil participation.
Now I’m out here and I’m not set up for anything. I’m not set up for any financial situation.
– Michael Cevallos
When not provided rehabilitation services, many returning citizens struggle to adjust to society’s negative stigmas and have to fight the economic and legal barriers that continuously remind them of their prior mistakes. This increases the rate of recidivism.
The program Homeboy Industries is just one example of a successful and beneficial re-entry program. They provide services to those leaving jail and those who are at risk for being incarcerated (due, for example, to drug use/selling, or to membership in gangs). Successful re-entry programs provide opportunities for returning citizens to support themselves and gain employment, and they include some services to address addiction and mental health issues.
What matters is when the inmates are ready to accept change and
– Crystal Luna, Community Health Worker | Coconino County, AZ
want to learn the tools to turn their life around. Only then [are the programs successful].
In addition to Homeboy Industries, there are many organizations across the United States that offer re-entry programs and services. Below is a snapshot of just a few.
Programs to Treat Addiction and Mental Health
The EAC Network has offices in the five boroughs of New York City. They provide multiple different services to youth, families, and seniors in these communities. Some of their programs help people impacted by the criminal justice system. For example, before people who are incarcerated are released. EAC helps assess their mental illness and health issues and encourages them to participate in CRAN and ORP services after their evaluation results.
Community Re-entry Assistance Network (CRAN)
CRAN creates individualized treatment plans and connects people who are incarcerated with community services, all to help people who were formerly incarcerated to fully integrate back into society.
The network provides transitional case management services, and it has served 568 clients in the last year.
The network helps people who were formerly incarcerated to obtain housing, vocational services, legal and family services, and services that address mental health and substance abuse issues, all to help them achieve long-term stability in their post-prison lives.
Offender Re-entry Program (ORP)
The ORP meets select individuals at discharge to guide them to approved residence or support housing programs in New York City.
Staff build a working relationship with clients during their re-integration process, helping them “identify healthy/appropriate coping skills, expand problem-solving techniques, and develop an Individual Service Plan (ISP), featuring person-centered goals targeting individualized challenges related” to re-entry.
They aim to increase “identity capital” for the personal success of people who have been incarcerated.
Programs for Self-Empowerment
Prison Professors is a low-cost, self-directed resource to help those impacted by the criminal justice system to create a plan for success by mapping out their re-entry priorities and developing tools to execute plans. The program helps them access resources that can teach participants to get past barriers and advocate for themselves.
This program is particularly special because it offers resources to individuals before sentencing, after sentencing, and at discharge. Their resources include information provided via websites, apps, podcasts, social media, books, and courses on Amazon. They also provide a weekly interactive webinar.
One of the program’s strengths is that it is built on the knowledge of those who have been previously incarcerated. Each teacher and instructor has been through the system in some capacity (much like the non-profit that employs Michael Plummer, whose story is highlighted in this rabbit hole’s section on “Rehabilitation”).
Prison Professors was founded by Michael Santos, who spent over 9,500 days in federal prison. Learn more about his story in this PBS NewsHour profile:
Where to next?
Background
Rehabilitation
