As states struggle with declining revenues, they must be creative in how they provide services to citizens. DOCs and other departments in state government are no exception. As agencies are forced to make-do with less, they are also seeking partners outside prison walls to accomplish corrections' most important goals - rehabilitation and public safety.

"It's bigger than corrections; it's good government. Corrections is one of the largest government agencies and we have a responsibility to be good citizens and an obligation to make sure our agency benefits society," said Reginald Wilkinson, Director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. "It's an obligation we have, plus it has a rehabilitative benefits for prisoners."

Partnerships in corrections can take many forms, but it is those programs that concentrate on inmate reentry that have garnered recent attention.

"They [partnerships] are in a variety of areas. [But] there's no question that reentry has been the impetus for a whole series of collaboratives that didn't happen before," said A.T. Wall, Director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections.

Wall said that between state agencies law enforcement has realized that corrections has a lot of useful information about inmates and people on probation and parole that can benefit public safety. In the community, corrections is increasingly reaching out to non-profits and other service providers, including faith-based organizations, to help offenders become successful in their lives after incarceration.

"It makes sense. Our expertise is custody and security and we do it well. Other agencies have greater expertise in addressing certain root causes of criminal behavior. We're recognizing the advantage of contracting with them," said Wall.

According to Wilkinson, these new partnerships are a strong sign that the prevailing philosophy in corrections is shifting from a lock-the-door attitude to one that truly recognizes the importance of rehabilitation.

This is affirming for officials in Ohio, as their focus - denoted even in the name of the corrections department - has always been on rehabilitation.

"Rehabilitation is not a dirty word any more. We were never afraid to use the R-word in Ohio, but it is presumed to be a soft-on-crime, warm and fuzzy for some. But that has been proven to be an erroneous thought process," said Wilkinson.

This is evident in the dollars that are flowing and from the emphasis being placed on partnerships - particularly those that help offenders stand on their own two feet.

Turning Offenders into Productive Citizens

In Washington State, corrections facilities have focused on partnerships with the community that promote restorative justice practices to help offenders be accountable for their crimes and simultaneously build relationships in the community.
 
According to Tami Kampbell, Community Partnerships Program Coordinator for the DOC, each of the regional corrections offices hired community victim liaisons to help the DOC link with the victim community.

"Our vision is working together for safer communities. We enhance that by collaborating with citizens victims and stakeholders so we can hold the offenders accountable," said Kampbell.

Kampbell said the DOC is also recruiting community members to serve on community accountability boards that encourage offenders to admit to their violation and then go before a group from the community to discuss sanctions. In this restorative justice model, the community members administer a sanction for the offender rather than sending the offender to the court system.

This community board meeting, Kampbell said, is often triggered by a violation of a probationer or parolee. Depending on the violation, the supervising DOC staff member can recommend this outlet as a way to deal with an offense at a lower level.
 
"What we're finding is - going before a judge or a community corrections officer and administering sanctions to an offender is like coercion but research says that the community [approach] may work better," Kampbell said.

In addition, the agency is working with the community on a victim witness program with a victim council that helps the DOC review some of its policies on victim notification.

"It goes back to the restorative justice when offenders commit crimes. Victims need to be a part of the process," Kampbell said.

One of the primary roles is to hold victim wrap-arounds where -- if an offender is to be released to a certain area -- a victim liaison will set up a meeting with law enforcement and the victim to develop a safety plan so that when the offender gets out, the likelihood of re-victimization is diminished.

While the DOC has focused on victim support, Kampbell said that partnerships also exist in other areas, but the overarching goal in all of them is the same - to educate and involve the community in how the corrections department works.

"We are educating them. The more they know about it they will understand the issues at hand. We know people go to prison, but the majority of people don't stay there. All the work to get them prepared to go out into the community is important," Kampbell said.

Wilkinson agrees.

"If we are going to manage and control an escalating population, we cannot do it alone," he said. "Partnerships are essential. It used to be that corrections agencies were a secret society, but in Ohio we open our prison to a little bit of everything." 

Bucking Tradition

More and more corrections agencies are trying new collaborations with organizations and groups in the community. In Rhode Island, for example, officials have expanded the traditional community religious volunteer role from the visitor in the prison to a broader community role after release.

"I personally think that one of the most powerful agents of change in an offender's life is a conversion experience or its secular equivalent - such as drug and alcohol treatment programs. We need to make those opportunities available if we are trying to change lives," said Wall.

One example of this new relationship is the creation of the Family Life Center in Providence for offenders being released into two different communities in the city.

According to Wall, the center was created after the local head of the urban league and a local pastor approached him to discuss the flow of ex-offenders coming into the community.

"They said 'We acknowledge that and accept it. We are interested in helping them reintegrate into the community and provide support for the families to whom they return.' They offered to collaborate with us, but made it clear they wanted to be strong partners, not just window dressing," said Wall.

Wall took them up on their offer and helped them recruit a "loose-knit" and broadly representative group to help plan how the community could help support and welcome these offenders - and ultimately support them to get back on their feet.

The group included members of the corrections department, clergy from many faiths including Baptists, Roman Catholic, Nation of Islam and African Methodist Episcopal, the local state representative, and a local city councilman. The group also had victim representatives, ex-offenders and local residents.

"Almost one of every four inmates in Rhode Island return to these neighborhoods," said Wall.

The group incorporated a non-profit organization, the Family Life Center, which has locally-based community living consultants who help offenders prepare for return to the community both from the prison and then outside in the community.

The staff are recruited directly from the community and serve as caseworkers. These consultants collaborate with in-house prison staff to learn the offenders' needs, release date and then work with the offender to make medical appointments, set up transitional housing and support them in their first meeting with their families.

The DOC was able to utilize reentry funds from the federal government to support the program and it has been well received by the DOC and the community alike.

"It has had some very positive side effects. Apart from the work that is being done through the Family Life Center, the partnership has forged a whole new set of relationships. We [the DOC] were traditionally regarded with skepticism and hostility in the inner city community because most of what we did was behind walls and fences. Now there is a new sense of connection that I think holds a lot of potential," Wall said.

Another program that is underway in Rhode Island involves services for offenders with mental illness.

After an admittedly contentious relationship had formed between corrections and mental health departments, officials of both agencies decided to step back and work together to serve a population that in many cases was flowing from the prison to the community and back again.

The Department of Mental Health now uses its funding to contract with a local community health center for referral and discharge planning services within Rhode Island prisons. This caseworker is known by custody and treatment staff and accepts referrals from across the system that have serious mental health problems and are nearing release.

According to Wall, the caseworker evaluates and contacts the local community mental health center in the location where the inmate will go upon discharge and arranges uninterrupted services from the day they walk out the door.

The partnership has been so successful that the departments jointly applied for funding to create transitional housing opportunities for this population and recently received a grant from the Council of State Governments and the National Institute of Corrections.

"We find people with mental illness and criminal behavior are a unique subset of the population. They can't necessarily function in the group home setting and tend to relapse. We want to create supportive housing with mental health services and community correctional supervision to help that population become stable and law abiding," he said.

Other agencies, such as Minnesota Department of Corrections, have seen that support for offenders after release reaps major benefits if done in partnership with others organizations in the community.

Minnesota Partners to Improve Offender Accountability

Minnesota's Project SOAR (Safety Offender Accountability and Restoration) started as a grant opportunity through the federal Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative grant program.

According to David Ellis, Program Director for SOAR, the state DOC is the lead agency in the partnership with the Hennepin County Training and Employee Assistance program and several other agencies in the community, which includes Minneapolis.

Ellis said this broad-based partnership is important because eventually offenders will be living in these communities without support from the DOC or other assistance programs.

"The people who are left are those who live and breathe next door after they return to the community. It's about trying to get the community to
welcome them home or are we going to say we don't want them here," said Ellis.

As part of the program, service providers install caseworkers in the facility to work with this group of serious offenders prior to release to conduct assessments, recommend where offenders should live and interface with the community, victims, and victim advocates.

The goal is to have the offenders reenter society with connections to work, housing and treatment for health and mental health issues.

"I'm interested in figuring out how to keep people on the outside. Accountability doesn't have to mean locking people up," Ellis said.

Although this type of collaboration makes sense in terms of reducing recidivism, Ellis said there was a culture change that needed to take place inside the corrections agency.

"We are taking people from the community and allowing them to be an intimate partner in designing the reentry plan and designing programming and continuing that into the community. That traditionally is not the way things have happened in corrections," he said.

But the DOC has stepped up to the plate and as a result, Ellis said, the program is on track to open a new era in corrections.

"Quite frankly prisons can't determine recidivism rates; the people who have the most impact on offenders are those who live and breath right next door," Ellis said. "This is a way for community agencies, including the faith-based community to help build relationships. If we are ever going to be successful [in reducing recidivism] it will be through relationships."

This is the prevailing notion being developed throughout the corrections field as DOCs learn that they cannot do the job of rehabilitation alone.

"For a long time our profession was pretty isolated -- the location, the architecture of our prisons and the culture was inward looking. I think most of us do a very good job of running prisons but if we truly care about public safety we do have to consider life afterwards and that work can't be done by corrections alone, it has to be in partnership," said Wall.

Resources:

Ohio DRC - 614-752-1150

Minnesota DOC -651-603-0142

RI DOC - 401-462--2611

Washington DOC - 360-753-1550