The shift away from a purely punitive criminal justice system to one that focuses on rehabilitation and mental health, in order to reduce the chances of recidivism, is a fairly recent concept. Assemblymember Eddie Gibbs, who was incarcerated, along with reentry facilitators say that “not enough” is being done to help this underserved population as they reintegrate back into society.
Organizations such as Project Renewal and Fortune Society have been doing the groundwork of addressing the individual needs of former prisoners for years with robust and structured programs and facilities. Robert Blocker, Project Renewal’s senior director of reentry services, helps break the cycles of homelessness, poor health, unemployment, and incarceration. The program holds 90 transitional housing beds and 45 units of permanent supportive housing with services specifically for parolees with mental illness.
“Most of the clients we work with are repeat offenders,” said Blocker. “One of the reasons this program was created 20 years ago was trying to slow down recidivism. What we’ve done is just wrap around all the services we can think of that the client might need reentering the community.” Read the full story.
