Unintended Consequences
By Albert B. Kelly
If there is one area that is rife with unintended consequences, it’s government. I’m not sure this can be entirely avoided, but I do know that any attempt at governing responsibly includes trying to look into the future in order to see what will happen if we take one action as opposed to another.
The emergence of the Covid-19 public health crisis and the mess it has made of budgets up and down the government ecosystem has meant choices with options ranging between bad and awful, which in budget world is the choice between taking our lumps up front or kicking the can down the road and taking our lumps at some point in the future.
One such area where we face this choice involves inmates, the release of inmates, and the absence of re-entry services. As we speak, the New Jersey Legislature is getting ready to consider or reconsider A-4235 and its companion from the State Senate S-2519. These bills, in their current form, would mean the release of thousands of people (due to the pandemic) throughout New Jersey with none of the supports and re-entry services needed to help them transition successfully.
Avoiding rhetoric about how we’re going to be overrun by hordes of violent felons, most reasonable people can agree that transitioning from time behind bars back into civilian life can be difficult under the best of circumstances. In order to make that transition reasonably well, programs are in place to address everything from substance abuse and employment coaching to mental health treatment and helping people obtain valid ID, medical insurance, and housing.
Eliminate these programs and the need to complete certain steps involved as a condition of release and we will be left with people who are ill-equipped and ill-prepared to re-enter their communities. The release of thousands of individuals, which these bills bring about, while simultaneously cutting funds for New Jersey’s Residential Community Release Programs in the Department of Corrections portion of the budget beginning October 1st by some 43%, is setting all involved up for failure.
One of the most immediate ways this reduction in funds will show is in the number of former inmates that would soon fill out the ranks of the homeless. Under normal circumstances, those approaching release are supposed to have some type of solid “home plan”- meaning a place to go. In the face of budget cuts and large scale inmate releases, some initial estimates have hundreds of inmates being homeless. In Cumberland County, this could amount to between 200 and 300 people.
In response, some will point to safety net programs as a backstop for these individuals. Yet anyone who has ever tried to navigate the vast bureaucracy that is government assistance knows that even without the pandemic, it’s a hamster wheel of forms, pre-recorded messages, and agency visits that’s a full-time job all its own. Of course, my concern has its focus here in Cumberland County and in my community of Bridgeton because when the doors open, if these individuals have no place to go, they’ll be struggling on our streets and that is not acceptable for them or for us.
Facilities here in Cumberland County, such as Kintock Group, have seen their client numbers drop roughly 50% since the start of the pandemic until now. I am not unmindful of the hard and difficult choices being made in the face of this pandemic, but if anyone thinks cutting resources and early release will somehow save lives or money, it won’t. We will pay; it’s just that the price will be obscured and delayed because it will be in the form of layoffs of those employed in facilities, costs connected with increased homelessness, ER visits, court sessions, police overtime, and similar such costs.
Those charged with administering New Jersey’s Residential Community Release Programs are proposing some $27 million-plus in additional funding be added for halfway houses while also expanding timeframes for those slated for release so they can receive treatment and help. It’s easy to argue such efforts are self-serving, but I can’t.
When you consider that roughly of 50% of inmates suffer from long term health conditions, 20% suffer from serious mental health issues, upwards of 75% suffer from some type of chronic substance abuse disorder, and most have poor work histories; cutting funds for re-entry programs and releasing people with no transition structure will most certainly have unintended consequences- ones that can and should be avoided.