Emerging Roles and Responsibilities in the Reentry Partnership Initiative: New Ways of Doing Business

• NCJ Number: 196441
• Author(s): James M. Byrne Ph.D.; Faye S. Taxman Ph.D.; Douglas Young M.S.
• Date Published: March 2002
• Length: 34 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2000-IJ-CX-0045
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation

Annotation

This is a report on the evaluation of the Reentry Partnership Initiative (RPI) -- a Federal program that includes the formation of a partnership between criminal justice, social service, and community groups to develop and implement a re-entry process for offenders -- conducted to examine how the eight demonstration sites implemented the RPI, with a focus on the organizational development across agencies to construct new offender re-entry processes.

Abstract

The evaluation of the eight sites (Maryland, Vermont, South Carolina, Missouri, Florida, Nevada, Massachusetts, and Washington) involved qualitative research methods, including interviews, focus groups, network analysis surveys of stakeholders, and a review of documents. The evaluation focused on measuring the fidelity of the program implementation during the early stage of the RPI process. The RPI requires key criminal justice system actors (police, courts, corrections, community) to redefine their roles and responsibilities in the effort to reintegrate offenders into the community. This report initially discusses the essential characteristics of a successful re-entry program: leadership, partnership, and ownership. It advises that RPI programs will involve shared decision-making by police, institutional corrections, community corrections, and public/private service providers concerning "what to do" with offenders as they make the transition from the institution to the community. In addition to the aforementioned key actors, representatives from the community (e.g., victims, victims advocates, community boards, etc.) will also be involved in re-entry decision-making. All members of the partnership should have a voice at each of the following decision points in the re-entry process: program eligibility, institutional treatment plans, structured prerelease planning, structured re-entry, and community reintegration strategies. In presenting the findings of the evaluation, this report describes how the RPI shared decision-making strategy has changed the roles and responsibilities of each of the partnership participants in the eight demonstration sites. The RPI programs examined shared a common theme: inclusion of nontraditional partners along with improvements in system coordination will result in improved public safety. 13 notes