Introduction
Rising numbers of inmates, coupled with the loss of prerelease training and outside supervision, foreshadow an unanticipated and generally unanswered breakdown of our correctional system. New innovations in the inmate re-entry field, both within state correctional systems and in local communities, hold some promise but these approaches are limited and address only a fraction of the thousands of inmates released each year.
U.S. communities face a significant hurdle if they are to cement the gains they realized in falling crime rates, one that will require a fundamental shift in the expectations placed on the correctional system. In the collective desire for safer streets, criminal justice policy has focused on two primary objectives: tough sentencing and strict incarceration in prisons and county jails. As more and more offenders have been arrested and incarcerated, crime rates have fallen and our neighborhoods have become quantifiably safer.
On the surface, it would appear that we have found the right formula. However, those inmates now are returning to the same neighborhoods from which they came one, five, 10 and 20 years ago. In fact, 97 percent of inmates now in prison eventually will be released. If current policy and practice continues, within three years of getting out of state prison, 62 percent will be rearrested and 41 percent will be back behind bars (Beck, 2000). These burgeoning numbers are gaining national attention: "Without making contingency plans for it -- without even realizing it -- we are creating a disaster that instead of dissipating over time will accumulate with the years," reported the Atlantic Monthly in June 1999.
Anxiety over potential coddling of inmates has long stopped or eroded efforts to assist offenders in making successful transitions outside prison walls. In striving to stay tough on crime, a new public safety crisis has emerged. According......
