Mothers in Prison
 Position Statement on Offender Reentry
 Creating Effective Offender Re-entry Programs
 Community Corrections As A Safe Alternative to Incarceration
 Needs of Incarcerated Mothers and Their Children
 Opposition to the Death Penalty
 Abolition of all Mandatory Drug Sentencing Laws in Delaware
 Restoration of Voting Rights for Ex-Offenders

Creating Effective Offender Re-entry Programs
March 14, 2003
Summary Report of Presentation by Dr. Todd Clear, Distinguished Professor
John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Part I - Defining the Problem in Delaware

At the forum, Mr. Eichler put Dr. Clear's information about re-entry into a Delaware context by providing important statistics that highlight our state's need for effective re-entry programs. As he pointed out, national rankings place us:

• 1st in per capita expenditures for corrections;
• 3rd in the rate at which our citizens are placed under correction supervision; and
• 4th in our incarceration rate.

To keep up with this high rate of incarceration, we have taken the costly route of expanding prison capacity. Our latest expansion of 2,500 beds cost Delaware's taxpayers $176 million dollars–and as of this printing, Delaware's prisons are over capacity again.

We are allocating more and more of our limited resources to corrections, especially prison capacity expansion; consequently, we have less and less left for other needs – like education and health care.

Another fact we need to look at is this: Last year Delaware released 12,013 offenders who had completed their sentences. That's 1,001 people coming out of prison and into our communities each month.

Questions we must ask include:

• With high recidivism rates, what are we going to do to ensure that ex-offenders can successfully reintegrate into their communities?
• What are we going to do to treat those who have drug and alcohol or mental health problems so they do not re-offend?
• What are we going to do to help keep the fabric of many of our communities from tearing apart?

Expanding prisons does not address these problems. That is why many in Delaware believe this is a pivotal year for change, and re-entry program development is a significant component in effecting positive reform.

Mr. Eichler added that the sense of urgency is real: we need to take steps now so we can avoid the need to expand prison capacity yet again. The Department of Correction will ask for another $85 to 150 million for another 1,000 beds… unless current policies change. And this does not include annual operating costs, which on average could be as much as $40 million.

Alternatives to incarceration that will more effectively and efficiently protect public safety are needed, and Mr. Eichler pointed to the many that are delineated in the Department of Correction master plan for 2000-2010 – recommendations that will allow Delaware to re-direct dollars used for incarceration to programs that provide more effective alternatives, focusing on intermediate sanctions that involve rehabilitation, treatment, and prevention.

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Part II - Re-Entry Studies and Public Safety in the United States

Dr. Clear began his remarks with a history of re-entry studies as a way to see if our prison system was working to protect public safety and ensure justice.

As early as the 1970s, research showed that prisons had failed to make our streets safer, and that the nation needed new policies to identify and strengthen ways to deal with lawbreakers. Proof that incarceration practices and policies are not working to prevent crime and promote safety can be seen in the nonstop escalation in the number of those the nation incarcerates.

According to the Department of Justice, in 1972, there were 200,000 prisoners; today, we have more than 1.2 million. Adding in those in county jails, we arrive at a prison population well over 2 million people.

No direct cause for spiraling prison population
Research over the years has shown no correlation exists between social and economic phenomena and the consistent growth in our nation's prison population. Over a 30 year period, the prison population never dropped; it just kept rising – through economic upturns and downturns… through times when funds were available for education and other social services and times when they were not… through periods when the crime rate rose and the crime rate fell. In fact, the only thing that did not fluctuate was the number of people being put in prison. The numbers increased year after year.

According to Dr. Clear, this suggests that the "prison system is an extraordinary failure."

Reinvigorated Focus on Re-entry
Now that the nation has spent decades expending resources on enforcement and incarceration, and we have data to show how ineffective this focus has been in preventing crimes and making our streets safer, there is a growing awareness that justice demands alternatives to incarceration.

Dr. Clear attributes the renewed focus on re-entry programs to the current emphasis on public safety. In the United States, 600,000 prisoners will be released in 2003, which is 20,000 more than in 2002. With such a high number of ex-offenders returning to our communities, a significant effort must be made to " remove the fear factor associated with this." Dr. Clear clarified his point by stating that "fear backfires and leads to decisions we're sorry for, that haven't helped us and won't. We need to create opportunity, enthusiasm, and hope…"

Re-entry programs designed to support and capitalize on the potential for ex-offenders to successfully reintegrate into the community contribute to public security and safety. Moreover, effective re-entry programs directly build and help sustain the vitality, commerce, and health of our communities, "especially the poorer minority communities which are severely impacted by our criminal justice policy of removal instead of rehabilitation."

Dr. Clear quoted statistics to demonstrate that public safety is not threatened primarily by those returning from prison. According to a study by Richard Rosenfeld, with Joel Wallman, at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, less than one percent of violent crimes in Maryland can be attributed to people released from prison between 1994-95. One of the highest percentages was recorded for Illinois, where 11 percent of violent crimes were caused those released during the same time period. The average across the nation was six percent, or one in 18.

Dr. Clear said that it is the "younger ones headed for a life of crime that threaten us." He added that this realization should give us hope because "Preventing crime is easier than controlling crime."

Consequences of Removal Practices
The first thing to be understood is this: re-entry problems are linked to incarceration rates. The more we lock up, the more will be released to our communities, and, as Dr. Clear adds, "all the worse for having been incarcerated."

It is important to understand that removal practices (e.g. rates of arrests and longer lengths of stay) are to blame for re-entry problems.

In an as yet unpublished study by Allen Beck of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1980-2001, there has been a 240 percent increase in the nation's prison population. Of this, zero percent is attributable to an increase in crime rates. Fifty-five percent is attributable to a higher rates of arrests. Forty-five percent is due to longer lengths of stay.

Dr. Clear continued by focusing on one of the often-overlooked facts: "We have a removal phenomenon that contributes to our ability to overcome obstacles to effective re-entry. Removals occur principally in the poor minority areas of our nation. Race is dominant issue."

Data show that there is a 27 percent likelihood that African-American males will become inmates in our state or federal prisons some time during their lives. On average, their first arrests are in their teens, peaking in their twenties, and leading to release later in their twenties or in their thirties. Data also show that African-American men go to prison two to three times more often than white men. Today, the incarceration rates are highest among African-American women due to policy changes in drug laws.

Using one of many examples to prove his point, Dr. Clear showed how removal practices occur in concentrated areas where cycling in and out of prison negatively affects those neighborhoods. Those who return to community are not in better shape, get little support, and set a poor example for youth growing up in these communities.

Removal practices contribute to a great loss in human and social capital; they deplete a community's ability to maintain social control; that is, how people treat each other suffers.

Dr. Clear stated that, "If you want to ruin a neighborhood, lock up many of its people for a short period of time and then return them to that community. They come back to where they didn't have jobs in the first place…continue to have an unstable job history, and now they have a prison record."

He added that these communities have a weakened social network that is all but lost when high numbers of people are removed and returned. Families are broken. The responsibilities involved in finding jobs, housing, providing child support, treating physical, or mental problems are overwhelming.

"As you lock up more people, you'll see a rise in crime the next year due to the de-stabilization of the community. Even more, felony disenfranchisement–taking away the right for ex-offenders to vote–separates them from feeling part of the community, causing them to have to regard for its laws. They feel they have no power to impact their own destiny."

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Part III - The Re-entry Challenge–What We Need to Do

At the March meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Richard Seiter of St. Louis University delivered a paper that provided insight into the effectiveness of several types of re-entry program components. Dr. Clear cited that study in providing the following data:

• Work release programs are successful in helping ex-offenders live productive, law abiding lives between 15 and 25 percent of the time.
• Halfway houses help 10 to 20 percent of the time.
• Drug treatment programs provided inside prison with follow up in the community show a 15 to 25 percent success rate.

Consequently, if some or all of these are put into place, a reduction in re-entry failures will occur.

Two other facts communicated by Dr. Clear suggest further research is needed:

• The effectiveness of transition planning in promoting successful re-entry is unknown..
• Drug testing shows no relationship to crime rate when it is only used to see if people are using.

Taking Action on The Big Idea
Dr. Clear proposed that we need a new way of looking at the entire re-entry challenge. He suggested that we "engage in community justice rather than criminal justice." This shift in vision is needed because:
1. Legislative change in and of itself does not work as, "No level of toughness will make legislators happy."
2. Our primary goal has to be to make the community a better place to live, not to assess whether punishment has happened.

These insights reflect the fact that most improvement in re-entry can be seen in concentrated places where problems existed and were relieved—in neighborhoods that formed partnerships and put support systems in place that would build and sustain human and social capital. Citing Cypress Hills in Brooklyn, New York, as an example of a community where effective re-entry initiatives are underway, Dr. Clear added that these efforts did not require new funding. They used money that was re-directed from existing funds.

According to Dr. Clear, there are several innovative ways to provide incentives for implementing alternatives to incarceration that will make communities better places to live and work, including:

• Requiring that 10 percent of the cost to lock up each person be invested in the community.
• Reducing lengths of stay by 10 percent and putting the money saved into community programs for re-entry.
• Creating reasons for neighborhoods to become better places by using the human capital of those who are released.

Dr. Clear concluded by asking the audience to imagine a community where ex-offenders renovated houses in which they and their families can live. Even more exciting, imagine these homes being designed to have living quarters on the second floor, with the first floor devoted to space for re-entry programs and services. Further, he asked that we imagine giving those who work on renovating these residences the opportunity to buy the building from a bank that will float the mortgage loan.

1 Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative: Going Home. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. May, 2002.

2 Bonczar, Thomas P. and Allen J. Beck. Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison, Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997.

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