According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, The U.S. spends $81 billion a year on mass incarceration.The money goes to staffing the criminal justice system and meeting the basic needs of Americans who are incarcerated.
But when they leave prison or jail and try to reintegrate into their communities, there isn’t much support. In fact, government funding for reentry services is minimal. Most reentry organizations are nonprofits and run on small budgets.
Jennifer Ortiz, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Indiana University Southeast who studies reentry programs, tells PBS: “600,000 people are released from correctional facilities every year, but it’s a part of the criminal justice system that’s being funded at no guarantee. We run the programs on borrowed money with scotch tape and sealing wax.”
She adds that giving someone released from prison a checklist with no support is a broken system.
Most states rely on their parole systems as the primary means to help people out of prison. It’s meant to help find employment, housing and identification, but it is set up so if a person slips up even once, they will be sent back. That is not a solution.
There are so many unnecessary roadblocks to integration. For example, some parolees have to pay the parole program as they go. Many people are forced to give up time to meet scheduled appointments when they could be working.
Grants help a tiny bit, but they require cutting through red tape, they aren’t consistent and can easily be cut off.
Also, the responsibility to help people reentering their community shouldn’t fall solely on nonprofits. Many pitches also fall on dead ears.
One reentry nonprofit called Pioneer Human Services in Washington state has a different approach than just relying on grants. The budget comes from a for-profit aerospace manufacturing company it operates, and hired people affected by the criminal justice system. The company focuses on housing, substance use disorder treatment, education, restitution, victim services and court costs.
The way people who make reentry budgets and their constituents, continue to view incarceration as a solution to society’s ills, works against the system. In the end, changing policy, which many reentry programs also lobby for, is a necessary first step.
