OFFENDER RE-ENTRY: EXPLORING THE LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITY FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES AND THEIR AGENCIES

Offender re-entry has never posed more serious challenges. Every year roughly 650,000 individuals are released from federal and state prisons to re-enter their communities. Of these 650,000 individuals, nearly two thirds will be rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within three years of their release. Communities are clearly struggling to accomplish the difficult work of assisting former offenders in their transition from prison to productive life while protecting the public from those who will re-offend. Arguably, the seriousness of this struggle is primarily the result of four factors. First, more offenders are re-entering communities than ever before.

While roughly 650,000 offenders will return to their communities from prisons this year, that number was nearer 250,000 only twenty years ago. This does not even include offenders released from jails, a number that, in fact, far exceeds the number of those released from prisons. Second, communities are bearing greater corrections costs than ever before. Over the last twenty years, corrections-spending has increased from $9 billion to $60 billion. Third, offenders are less equipped than ever before to re-enter their communities successfully.

Although corrections expenditures have increased dramatically, critical social services for prisoners have, in real terms, decreased. The need for substance abuse treatment and educational programming in prison has never been greater, but the percentage of prisoners receiving these services has actually declined. Fourth, a majority of offenders return to a small minority of communities that are typically characterized by social and economic disadvantage. As a result, these communities are stretched thin in their efforts to assist returning offenders while working to prevent recidivism.

Given these challenges, reoffending and relapse are, perhaps, to be expected. However, many of the service providers supporting returning offenders refuse to accept the expected. In the last decade, corrections officers, law enforcement leaders, public safety officials, health and human services providers, faith-based organization leaders, welfare officials, employment services providers, and housing and transportation experts have joined together through offender re-entry efforts in order to stop the cycle of wasted lives, disrupted communities, and victimization. These providers work on behalf of offenders by connecting them to critical social services. More importantly, they work on behalf of entire communities by enhancing public safety and reducing recidivism.

In this last objective, no community organization has more at stake than law enforcement agencies. Regrettably, however, law enforcement agencies’ involvement in offender re-entry efforts has remained largely theoretical. Some notable agencies have designed and led offender re-entry efforts, but research by the IACP, BJA and the Urban Institute reveals that a majority of law enforcement agencies do not even participate in offender re-entry efforts. Those who do are rarely involved in the planning or design of such efforts. Offender re-entry poses too costly a problem and too important an opportunity for law enforcement agencies to stand by in this manner.

The moment has come for law enforcement executives and their agencies to take their place in offender re-entry efforts. Summit participants were very sensitive to, and aware of, the fact that support for offender re-entry programs poses a distinct and significant set of challenges to law enforcement.

Given the historically high rates of recidivism among returning offenders, it is appropriate that police take ‘zero tolerance’ positions on re-offending, arresting those who offend, and alerting all returning offenders that adherence to the law is the foundation to their success. The summit’s focus was squarely on the latter group—returning offenders who wish to return to productive lives in their communities.

Participants felt strongly that proactive support to this group is also an appropriate action by the police and one that can potentially reduce the levels of crime, victimization and re-offending nationwide. Summit participants also made it clear that supporting returning offenders is a systemic community level issue vs. one that police can or should take on by themselves.

Thus, the recommendations emerging from the summit call for action by all members of the community through a team concept, with law enforcement officials taking a leadership role in support of their many community partners. And that leadership role for law enforcement can encompass both support to returning offenders making positive progress and aggressive enforcement actions where re-offending occurs.

To help craft an appropriate law enforcement agenda for offender re-entry initiatives, the IACP and COPS organized the 2006 national policy summit, Offender Re-Entry: Exploring the Leadership Opportunity for Law Enforcement Executives and Their Agencies, to consider the role law enforcement executives and their agencies should assume in offender re-entry efforts. Bringing together over one hundred law enforcement executives, corrections officers, criminal justice experts, social services directors, drug enforcement officers, leaders of faith-based and community-based initiatives, youth advocacy leaders, and public affairs directors, the summit asked these experts to develop recommendations that would guide law enforcement executives and their agencies in their work to transition offenders from prison to productive life while protecting the public from those who will re-offend.

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http://www.theiacp.org/research/ReentrySummitReport.pdf