RAND

Guy Miles and family

With 95 percent of people in America’s prisons and jails getting out eventually, a new study finds that public safety benefits by reuniting them with their families, helping them with housing, employment, and healthcare.

An Overview of Offender Reentry found that family ties provide the “greatest tangible and emotional support to offenders as they reenter the community. Former offenders who are married or have long-term relationships are less likely to recidivate or use drugs or alcohol compared to those in more casual relationships.”

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) produced the study and found many returning citizens have lingering or contagious diseases, depression or other mental illnesses. Nonetheless, budget shortages prevent creating enough programs for the physical and mental health needs of returning citizens. Additionally, most prisons and jails do not assess its services, thus making it difficult to evaluate “what works” for a successful return to the community.

The study pinpointed services and programs that reduce recidivism.

Housing and Employment

Mental health, drug arrest records, and legal restrictions have hampered returning citizens’ ability to find stable housing. Providing housing assistance had the greatest positive effect on returning people, the study found.

“The state typically spends $71,000 a year to house an inmate. It costs about $5,000 total to help put one [incarcerated] student through community college”, reports Fast Company.

Steady employment plays an important role in reducing recidivism and allows returning citizens to contribute to and develop social ties with their community.

Educational Opportunities

The study found that providing inmates educational opportunities and work experiences while incarcerated reduced recidivism.

Inmates who received education while incarcerated reduced the risk of recidivating after release by 43 percent, a 2013 RAND study showed.

Substance Abuse Treatment

A substance abuse treatment program in Hawaii relied on random drug testing, which reduced recidivism. The same outcomes, however, when tried in other places, were not reproduced.

“In 1935 the Supreme Court declared that a prosecutors job is more than merely winning every case by racking up convictions; it also included seeing that justice is done.” “Pressing Pause on Marijuana Convictions” NYT Opinion July 30, 2018

The NIJ study found that alcohol abuse treatment while incarcerated reduced recidivism for drunk drivers.

Long-term residential treatment for substance abuse disorders reduced recidivism, the study found.

State verse County Control

California experimented with sentencing alternatives to reduce prison populations by giving county governments more responsibility after criminal convictions.

“In their observational study using administrative data, they found that offenders who were released from state to county control generally had slightly higher recidivism rates, but the findings varied greatly from county to county,” NIJ reports.

The NIJ study also examined displaced returning citizens in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and found “that offenders who did not return to their home county had lower rates of recidivism.”

Application of Technology

NIJ determined that the Global Positioning System (GPS) is an effective monitoring tool for individuals who are on parole.

The study examined high-risk gang and sex offenders, monitored by GPS. GPS effectively identified offenders who violated parole. The results showed monitoring high-risk offenders by GPS led to fewer parole violations.

For low-risk offenders, having offenders report to an office for supervision effectively reduced parole violations and recidivism — and remote, tele-supervision was just as effective.

Reentry

Reentry services vary across the nation and are not consistent. Additionally, to identify reentry needs or potential for future criminal behavior, reliable assessment and screening tools are vital.

“The type, level and intensity of service will vary by an offender’s needs,” NIJ found. “It’s critical that a risk of reoffending be appropriately identified. Research shows that exposing low-risk offenders to programming for high-risk offenders can be harmful.”

Finally NIJ recommends, “A holistic approach to offender reentry — one that emphasizes the challenges faced by offenders as they return, and the impact of their return on families, victims and communities — is critical to addressing public safety.”

UC Davis combats prison stigmas with Beyond the Stats

http://sanquentinnews.com/italys-rehabilitation-method-public-interaction/

San Quentin hosts fourth D.A. forum

78 receive certificates from the Substance Abuse Disorder Program

GRIP Graduates 72 Peacemakers

Titan Gilroy demonstrating to students how an edge finder works

In spite of the negative stigma of a felony conviction, new policies developed by local, state and federal officials will encourage employers to hire the formerly incarcerated, according to a Rand Corporation report.

Policies such as “Ban the Box,” certificates of rehabilitation, the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Department of Labor Reintegration of Ex-Offender grants, even with limitations, improve the chances of the formerly incarcerated for employment, the Rand study found.

“To inform policies and programs aimed at improving employment rates for ex-offenders, we conducted experiments to examine employer preferences regarding policy options targeted to incentivizing the employment of individuals with felony criminal records,” Rand stated.

According to the Rand study, there are several theories that attempt to explain the “consistent negative relationship” between the formerly incarcerated and employers, which results in poor labor market success for many of those with criminal records.

“Employers’ primary concerns are violent convictions and low skills,” according to the Rand study.

Having a criminal record is associated with low productivity and reliability, it was reported. This, according to Rand, explains why ex-offenders receive fewer job offers and earn less money.

“There are two sets of economic discrimination theories to explain why firms choose not to hire ex-offenders even when they possess the necessary skills for a job,” Rand reported. First, “employers worry that their clients or employees associate ex-offender status with being a high-risk worker.” Second, “employers cannot be certain about the productivity levels of prospective workers.”

The Rand study focused on policies designed to ease employer concerns by offsetting “actual or perceived costs of employing an ex-offender.” For example, in 1996 the federal tax code made available a credit to for-profit companies that employ groups that face certain barriers to entry in the job market, including “ex-felons.”

Another way to increase employment opportunities for ex-felons is the “Ban the Box” (BTB) policy that limits the use of an applicant’s criminal history by employers when making hiring decisions.

“There are over 4,800 legal restrictions facing people with convictions after sentence completion…73% of these legal barriers are permanent.”

“SAFE AND SOUND: …” by Californians For Safety and Justice Nov. 2017

“By delaying employers’ ability to use a job applicant’s criminal history as a signal of low employability, BTB policies aim to encourage ex-offenders to apply for positions,” Rand reported.

A certificate of rehabilitation can also be used as an incentive for employers to hire the formally incarcerated. According Rand, “a certificate of rehabilitation (CoR) is a judicial order in which, typically, a court determines that an individual has shown exemplary behavior and declares them judicially rehabilitated.” Eleven states, including California, provide some form of this certificate.

Because an ex-offender’s loss of driving privilege can negatively affect an employer’s decision to hire them, some employment and training programs for ex-offenders include a transportation component, the Rand study says, adding also that “auto ownership has been shown to increase employment rates.”

“To identify policies that could increase employment rates of workers with criminal records, we conducted two policy experiments using a survey-based, modified-discrete choice experiment approach,” Rand reported.

Rand chose a tax credit and a private staffing agency to test employers’ preferences within its experimental hiring design.

“While the policy features studied in the experiments are largely hypothetical, they are based on the federal WOTC; local and state BTB laws; services of probation, parole, and re-entry programs; and services of employment or staffing agencies,” the study stated.

Some results from the study indicate that employers that used the baseline staffing agency would forward a candidate with the necessary skills and a nonviolent felony conviction to the next round of recruitment 42.9 percent of the time.

It was reported that seven out of 10 employers “would consider hiring a candidate if, in addition to the baseline package, there was also a guaranteed replacement worker program (65.6 percent) or a certified work performance history.”

Other results show that if an ex-felon job candidate with the required skills and a nonviolent felony conviction was supported by a tax credit, about six out of 10 employers would forward the candidate on to the next level of recruitment.

Lastly, “approximately five to six out of 10 employers said they would forward the candidate on to the next recruitment round if they had secure, consistent transportation,” Rand reported, adding finally that “the candidate with validated work performance is 24.4 percent more likely to be considered for a job than the other candidate.”

www.rand.org/t/RR2142

http://sanquentinnews.com/job-fair-sponsored-by-trust-program/
http://sanquentinnews.com/prison-employment-connection-holds-job-readiness-event/

Public safer when released inmates supported

Several new policies to help hire formerly incarcerated