WASHINGTON – In observance of Second Chance Month, the Office of Justice Programs joins advocates, criminal justice professionals and citizens from across the country in recognizing those who have successfully returned from incarceration and created productive and prosperous lives in their communities.
“The safety of our communities depends utterly on our paving the way for prisoners and jail inmates to make the transition to good and productive citizens,” said OJP Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Katharine T. Sullivan. “The Office of Justice Programs is committed to giving our corrections, criminal justice and community partners the resources they need to help returning offenders make that transition successful and lasting.”
Former inmates returning to their communities often face complex challenges. According to the Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Statistics, 572,916 state prisoners were released from incarceration in 2017. A separate BJS study found that five out of six state prisoners were rearrested within nine years of their release. Many had entered prison with mental illness or substance abuse problems that in most cases went untreated when they were behind bars, and which created barriers to their successful reentry.
To help offenders confront these challenges and break the cycle of crime, OJP provided more than $74 million last year to support state, local and tribal governments and nonprofit organizations in their work to reduce recidivism.
OJP’s Bureau of Justice Assistance provides grants, training and technical assistance, and policy development services to state local and tribal governments. BJA provided more than $58.3 million through its 2019 Second Chance Act suite of grant programs in 2019 designed to help communities develop and implement strategies to address the challenges of reentry and recidivism. More information regarding BJA reentry programs is available here.
Last year, OJP’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention provided more than $11.2 million through OJJDP’s Second Chance Act suite of grant programs to states, local communities and tribal jurisdictions to develop and implement effective reentry services for detained juveniles and incarcerated parents with children under the age of 18. The funds also support the successful transition of young fathers and mothers from out-of-home placement or incarceration back to their families and communities.
In 2018, OJJDP released Reentry Starts Here: A Guide for Youth in Long-Term Juvenile Corrections and Treatment Programs, a toolkit to help young offenders as they prepare to reenter their communities. It provides resources to help youth set and attain their goals, which can include returning to school, applying for housing, getting a job or seeking support services. The guide also provides youth with practical steps that they can take to overcome common barriers to reentry. More information regarding OJJDP’s reentry programs is available at here.
Last year, the National Institute of Justice, OJP’s research, development and evaluation component, allocated more than $5.2 million to support research under NIJ’s Research and Evaluation on Promising Reentry Initiatives solicitation. The funding supports research to evaluate innovative reentry initiatives that focus on juveniles, young adults and adults with a moderate-to-high risk of reoffending. Notably, it examines innovative ways to use smartphones and other mobile devices to help offenders returning to the community, and it is developing devices that deploy artificial intelligence to provide early warning of risky behavior, as well as tools to curb criminal behavior and help offenders comply with conditions of their post-release supervision.
NIJ also hosts CrimeSolutions.gov, a web-based clearinghouse that serves as a centralized and reliable resource for criminal justice stakeholders, policymakers and practitioners to find information on justice-related programs and practices, which have been screened, reviewed and rated using a standardized process. To date, many effective reentry programs are included in Crimesolutions.gov.