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| The building blocks to redemption |
| By David Scharf, Manager, Broward Sheriffs Office Day Reporting and Reentry Division |
| Published: 02/12/2007 |
One practitioner finds promise in a practice that addresses the problems plaguing his state and industry.There are approximately 90,000 prisoners in Florida's Department of Corrections. Almost 90 percent of them will eventually be released. Most will return to the same community from which they came. Many will re-kindle relationships with the same old negative influences, associate with the same old acquaintances and reside in the same high crime, high drug infested neighborhoods. Within 3 years, almost 25 percent of them will return to prison. Almost 50 percent of Florida's prisoners have been there before. The majority of prisoners read at a sixth grade level. Do these numbers sound familiar? If so, you are in the same boat as many jurisdictions throughout the United States. Many prison and jail systems are revolving doors. Many are training grounds for our future dangerous criminals. The dilemma many of us struggle with on a daily basis is what to do about it. Certainly we can warehouse them, build new and expensive facilities, change sentencing laws and be “tough on crime.” But does it really work? Florida has some of the most stringent sentencing laws in the nation, yet 90 percent of its 90,000 prisoners will eventually be released and the average length of stay is about four and one half years. Could the answer be stronger and more viable prisoner or jail reentry programs? I think the answer is a definite yes, and the criminal justice community should take every opportunity to prove it. Reentry initiatives are not new. They started in England in the early 1970's as an alternative to incarceration of older petty criminals who were chronic offenders. At the same time, there was a movement by British Probation to open centers to provide group services. The criminal justice act of 1982 formalized the existence of day reporting and reentry centers and by the mid 1980s, there were more than 80 in England and Wales. In the United States, the first day reporting and reentry center was opened in 1986 by the Hampden County, Massachusetts Sheriff's Department. It was utilized as an early release program for county inmates as well as for day treatment of juvenile offenders and mentally ill criminal defendants. Throughout the United States, these centers have evolved to service criminal justice systems in a variety of ways. They can provide intermediate community supervision to pretrial or sentenced offenders while providing more intensive and more frequent contact. What is interesting is how they have morphed to accommodate the needs of their customers. Whether their purpose is to alleviate jail overcrowding or providing non-residential services, they are fast becoming an important piece of the criminal justice puzzle. Should comprehensive discharge planning become part of the process? The answer should be yes. As noted, nearly all prison inmates and virtually all jail inmates will eventually be released to our communities notwithstanding prior record or the seriousness of their charge. If we begin discharge planning early in the incarceration process and try to identify the barriers of successful reentry into the community, we will be well ahead of the game. If our goal is to reduce recidivism and make our communities safer places, then it is in fact the right thing to do. We have identified the fact that repeat offenders, be they serious or not, are the ones continuously committing crimes and re-populating our prison and jail facilities. If reading and comprehension levels of inmates are substantially lower than the general population, how can we expect inmates to succeed in the workplace? Even the most basic and menial jobs these days require a modicum of computer skills. So, here some questions we must ask. Are we sufficiently preparing inmates to return to society or are we setting them up for failure by not providing them with the skills they need to succeed or at least survive? Are we addressing some of the more basic and fundamental needs of inmates? Are we providing for residential assistance? Do they have identification? Can they complete a simple job application? Do they have clothing to look presentable at a job interview? Have they been provided with employability skills training so they know what to say? If any of these questions are no, then we as criminal justice practitioners are setting ourselves up for continued failure. In Florida, more than 50 percent of inmates report substance abuse problems yet funding is limited to provide treatment. Idle time in most prisons is on the rise as program funding diminishes. Can we spend our taxpayer's money more efficiently? The answer is yes. At the Broward Sheriff's Office in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a community of almost 2 million residents and almost 6,200 county inmates, Sheriff Ken Jenne saw the need to break the cycle of crime. He realized that it was not enough to arrest and detain the same criminal defendants over and over again. He saw that there was a deficiency in the system and he sought a way to fix it. By creating the Day Reporting and Reentry Program, a Division of the Department of Community Control under the Direction of Kristina Gulick, he has taken proactive measures to address this complicated problem. The Division offers the judiciary the opportunity to couple traditional sentencing with creative alternatives. Defendants assigned to the Day Reporting and Reentry Division are able to do “one stop shopping” for a variety of needs. They offer such programs as: employability skills, job placement, relapse identification, cognitive behavior, AA, NA, AIDS prevention, community service and a number of other programs. They service defendants sentenced to the program and to those inmates recently released from custody who need additional assistance. They are in the process of conducting discharge planning on a number of defendants including those who are in a variety of in custody programs. Further, they provide aftercare services for those defendants sentenced to the Sheriff's Boot Camp program. Should we continue doing business as we always have or should we consider making some changes for the future? The answer seems obvious. David Scharf is a 22-year Criminal Justice veteran, and is currently the Manager of the Broward Sheriff's Office Day Reporting and Reentry Division. He has extensive experience in the areas of pretrial release, probation and community supervision. For further information, contact him at david_scharf@sheriff.org or 954.935.6710. |
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