Making Reentry Real
By Albert B. Kelly
For many people, it is difficult these days to find the time to do any serious reading at all but if you should find time, you might want to consider a book entitled “Halfway Home; Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration” by Reuben Jonathan Miller. Professor Miller is a sociologist and criminologist who teaches at the University of Chicago in their school of Social Service Administration.
His book is engrossing and informative not only because of his academic and professional chops, but because he speaks from personal experience having seen firsthand what is involved with “reentry” through helping and supporting his brother after his time of incarceration. My main take-away from the book is that the American notion that people who made a mistake (i.e. broke the law) can serve their time, pay their debt to society and then get their lives together and move forward like anyone else is nothing but a big myth.
I was guilty of that mindset in subtle and not so subtle ways. My thinking began to change over the course of my years as an elected official working with the homeless and engaging with many families who’ve had loved ones incarcerated my community of Bridgeton. Admittedly, what I have encountered is a very small sample size given the fact that, according to Miller, some 19.6 million people in this country live with a felony record and the vast majority came from crushing poverty.
This matters, because as Professor Miller points out, some 45,000 federal and state laws regulate the lives of these people. In Michigan and Illinois, states Miller has lived and worked in, there are 789 and 1,400 such laws respectively that cover everything from employment, political participation, family rights, and housing.
Consider the hamster wheel for someone reentering the community on parole in New Jersey; mess up on any one of them and you risk going back to prison. Individuals must report to a parole officer not only upon release, but thereafter as instructed whether weekly, bi-weekly or whenever. In addition, the person must submit to drug or alcohol testing at any time. The parolee must enroll in and successfully complete a mental health counseling program, residential counseling program, a treatment program or some combination of these. In addition, many must complete some type of community service.
On the face of it, these conditions don’t sound difficult or unreasonable, but that depends on several factors starting with where geographically you have to go. Most individuals reentering their communities don’t have cars or licenses, so they have to depend on the generosity of family or friends, what Miller calls an “economy of favors” if at all or they have to use public transportation. However, public transportation requires money which requires a job which is extremely difficult to find and harder to keep.
Consider that those reentering the community are required to make payment on any assessment, fine, penalty, lab fee, or restitution imposed by the court, which can be many thousands of dollars. This too requires a job. The person has to live at a residence approved by the parole officer and withholding that approval means violating the terms and there are countless reasons a place won’t be approved from someone else in the household having a criminal past to the type of neighborhood itself.
Reading Miller’s book, it became clear to me that “reentry” is an industry just like healthcare is an industry. According to a piece on parole by Colleen O’Dea for NJ Spotlight News, New Jersey has some 200 contracted programs and many careers and salaries depend on reentry services. I suspect that some reentry programs and organizations want to do well enough to move the needle and keep the funding coming, but not so well that they work themselves out of a job.
That’s why many reentering people might get a couple of months of rent paid, some hours on prepaid track phone, and rides on a prepaid metro card. This helps somewhat, but it doesn’t make for stability and once it’s gone, they’re on their own. If we believe in the concept of serve your time and pay your debt to society then we have to make it more likely that people can succeed afterwards. This might mean longer term housing strategies, an entry ramp to employment by supporting willing employers; and providing time and stability for people to move beyond their past- making reentry real.