JACKSON — Officials from criminal justice programs and religious and civil liberties organizations are working on a program to create a Reentry Council to help former inmates become productive citizens and to reduce prison recidivism.
U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett said in a news release that people who leave prison often have few skills and no resources as well as a felony record.
“It is a very difficult time. A bus ticket and $50 and an admonition to do right will not turn someone’s life around,” Starrett said. “We are sending people home without the tools and without the resources they need to succeed as law abiding citizens. We are setting them up for failure.”
Starrett said the Reentry Council will work toward developing practices for evaluating prisoners and providing appropriate rehabilitation when they enter correctional systems and identifying resources and connecting former inmates with those resources that can assist them after they leave prison.
Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps said about 9,500 people are released from prison each year. Epps said more than 77 percent have alcohol and drug problems; 15 percent have mental health problems. On average, he said their education skills are at a sixth grade level.
Work toward an inmate’s reentry to the community has to start from the time a person is sentenced, Starrett said. Inmates need to be directed into intervention which will help them, not make them worse, he said.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Texas are among states which have Reentry Councils. Texas, which was running out of inmate bed space, was able to close some prison units after it adopted the program, Starrett said.
The Reentry Council is patterned after a program started by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in 2011. U.S. Attorney offices in each of the 94 districts nationwide have a reentry coordinator.
Starrett said that 40 percent of state prison inmates have been there before on previous convictions.
“We need to have a goal to reduce recidivism. It will require funding and it will require a culture change,” said Starrett.
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