Lancaster County Re-Entry Management Organization

Lancaster: Seven members of the Offender Workforce Development Specialist (OWDS) team of the Lancaster County Re-Entry Management Organization completed their training in October and were recognized by the Lancaster County Commissioners at the meeting of the Board of County Commissioners on Wednesday, November 16, 2011.

OWDS is a national initiative from the National Institute of Corrections that promotes skill development and collaboration to improve employment outcomes, including job retention, for those re-entering the community from jails and prisons. The effort will result in lower recidivism, higher rates of employment, savings to taxpayers, and a reduction in the costs of incarceration.

Members of the Team underwent 180 hours of training to obtain this certification and they were among the first in Pennsylvania to be awarded the nationally-recognized OWDS credential. Team members include...

This Lancaster team will now bring what they have learned back to Lancaster County by offering trainings for other Lancaster County professionals who work with offenders and ex-offenders. These trainings will cover essential skills and best practices to assist people coming out of prison to find employment.

Washington, DC: Recently, the National Reentry Resource Center offered a series of fact sheets called  Myth Busters to clarify existing federal policies that affect formerly incarcerated individuals and their families. Click here for a downloadable copy of the series of Myth Buster; click here for the latest Reentry in Brief.

Each year, more than 700,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons. Another 9 million cycle through local jails. When reentry fails, the social and economic costs are high -- more crime, more victims, more family distress, and more pressure on already-strained state and municipal budgets. Because reentry intersects with health and housing, education and employment, family, faith, and community well-being, many federal agencies are focusing on initiatives for the reentry population.

Under the auspices of the Cabinet-level interagency Reentry Council, federal agencies are working together to enhance community safety and wellbeing, assist those returning from prison and jail in becoming productive citizens, and save taxpayer dollars by lowering the direct and collateral costs of incarceration. For more information about the Reentry Council, click here.   

Russell Nichols, Governing, April 14, 2011:  It's just not fair, is it?

Somebody commits a crime, goes to prison, then gets out of prison, only to go back faster than you can spell recidivism. And you're paying for it. Big time.

According to the Pew Center on the States, more than four in 10 offenders return to prison within three years, and across the country, the rate of this revolving door has been fairly consistent - even though prison spending has spiked to $52 billion a year.

About 43 percent of prisoners released in 2004, and 45 percent of those released in 1999 were back behind bars within three years for committing a new crime or violating terms of their supervised release, according to state corrections data.

The Pew study - one of the most comprehensive reports of its kind - comes at a crucial time with states locked up in budget bedlam. This data gives policymakers evidence that goes beyond anecdotal, and forces them to face the math. As they crunch numbers (or more accurately, argue about crunching numbers), they can ask critical questions: What's working? What's not working? Can a strategic shift in state corrections systems lead to financial freedom?

Lancaster:  A number of the members of the Lancaster County Reentry Council have attended presentations in the last quarter including the Philadelphia Forensic Task Force and the Forensic Interagency Task Force where they brought back articles related to Mental Illness and the criminal justice system. 

Those articles include...

• Getting Inside the Black Box: Understanding How Jail Diversion Works
• Correctional Policy for Offenders with Mental Illness: Creating a New Paradigm for Recidivism Reduction
• Toward Evidence-Based Practice for Probationers and Parolees Mandated to Mental Health Treatment
• Probationers and parolees with Mental Disorders: What Works!
• Probationers and Parolees with Mental Disorders: What Works! Resource List