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| Effective prisoner re-entry programs need state's robust support |
| By .freep.com |
| Published: 06/02/2011 |
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The community partnerships that have made the Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative a success are threatened by a rift between the Department of Corrections and the local agencies responsible for administering the initiative over spending practices and other issues. The DOC needs to repair those frayed relationships now if it wants to preserve the achievements of its signature $52-million program. It also needs a clear signal of support from incoming Corrections Director Daniel Heyns, who as Jackson County's sheriff criticized some re-entry programs. MDOC officials are scheduled to issue new guidelines for the 18 MPRI sites by June 29. Local MPRI administrators want to meet with the department June 10 to work out any remaining differences. Corrections should agree to that meeting as a first step in restoring trust and communications with its local MPRI operations. At a meeting in Lansing last week, local administrators expressed frustration over what they view as the department's waning commitment to MPRI and its growing tendency to micromanage local administrators and their subcontractors. They also complained they have been waiting for years for DOC to issue guidelines for spending the public money entrusted to them and to establish a management information system that measures how well re-entry sites statewide deliver employment, housing and other services to ex-prisoners. Doug Stites, CEO of Capital Area Michigan Works!, said the department's attitude toward local MPRI sites changed after former DOC Director Patricia Caruso and former Deputy Director Dennis Schrantz -- the program's architect -- left the department last year. "It's gone back to where they would prefer that the community just go away," he said. Read More. |
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