"Lessons for Sentencing Reform and Reentry: A Case Study of Project New Opportunity"

The title of this post is the title of this new Center for Community Alternatives' Justice Strategies report. Here is its executive summary:

This study looks at the development and implementation of Project New Opportunity (PNO).  PNO was created to provide reentry support to people being released from federal prison under President Obama’s Clemency Initiative and the United States Sentencing Commission’s (USSC) 2014 reduction in drug sentencing guidelines.

Through the retroactive application of the guideline reforms, about 6,000 individuals were eligible to be released on November 1, 2016.  Another 1,928 were released though the Clemency Initiative. Yet except for probation supervision and Bureau of Prison (BOP) halfway houses, there were no reentry supports available to these individuals, many of whom had served decades in prison.

The Center for Community Alternatives (CCA) worked with Project Director Malcolm Young to design the PNO project to provide a model of reentry support for people released under these criminal justice reform efforts.  PNO is based on research both about the challenges that accompany the transition from prison to community and the role that formerly incarcerated people can play in helping newly released people make this transition.  Imprisonment leaves scars including post-traumatic stress responses, a lack of familiarity with the routines of daily life, and forms of culture shock as one confronts technological and other changes that have occurred during one’s time in prison.  These adjustment issues contribute to recidivism, which is highest within the first 6 months of release.

The key elements of PNO’s model are: 1) a staffing plan that relies on formerly incarcerated people as Reentry Consultants, and 2) an “inside/outside” connection that introduces incarcerated people to their Reentry Consultant six months prior to their release and continues after release.  The majority of PNO participants cited this pre-release connection with someone who will be there when they get out as the primary benefit of the program.

PNO adds yet another example to the growing body of evidence that shows that sentencing reform, shorter sentences and early release mechanisms are reasonable and humane without jeopardizing public safely.  While PNO was unable to track recidivism of its participants through official data, it was able to follow up through the Reentry Consultants and/or participants themselves.  The information, while informal, is very encouraging: there were no known incidents or reports of rearrests, violations of the terms of probation supervision, or incarceration from the consultants or participants.  This suggests that PNO was able to help people stabilize and avoid new encounters with the criminal justice system in the immediate aftermath of release.

Via Law http://www.rssmix.com/