Several agencies in the state of Alabama are conducting various efforts and initiatives to prevent people from returning to prison after their release.
As part of the “Reentry Alabama 2030” initiative, state officials want to halve the current rate of 29% within six years.
“Alabama ranks 25th in the nation in recidivism rates; our goal is to cut that recidivism rate in half by the end of this decade,” Cam Ward, director of the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, told the Reentry Alabama Study Commission on Tuesday (Aug. 27).
“If we cut it in half, we would be among the top five states in the country, and I think that’s a goal we can achieve.”
Recidivism is the number of people who commit new crimes within three years of their release from prison.
Initiatives
Alabama law enforcement is currently running a pilot program at one of the state’s correctional facilities to issue an identification card to every Alabama citizen who leaves prison, a requirement mandated by a 2021 law that the state has struggled to comply with.
Sam Adams, ALEA’s director of government affairs and a member of the commission of inquiry, also said his agency is working to expand the program to all correctional facilities in the state.
David Walters of the Alabama Community College System, another board member, supported a number of initiatives his agency has been involved in, including the partnership with Ingram State Technical College at the Staton Correctional Facility’s PREP Center, which teaches in-demand job skills to inmates.
Walters also reported on developments in new initiatives his agency is currently implementing.
“We are currently implementing a new program with the Alabama Department of Human Resources that will provide incentives to employers to hire former prisoners in good jobs. We will subsidize that,” Walters said.
Jeff Williams, a representative of the Alabama Department of Corrections, said his own agency issues “almost 100 percent” Social Security cards to inmates leaving the prison system. ADOC is also in the process of launching another initiative to obtain documents for released inmates, he said.
“We have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health and are in the final stages of completing the process so that we can issue these birth certificates as well,” said Williams.
Work
The Alabama Department of Labor, led by Secretary Fitzgerald Washington, may have the biggest role in Alabama Reentry 2030, Ward said. Washington praised the early successes of its partnerships in training inmates for the labor market.
Washington also noted that the goal of cutting the state’s recidivism rate in half also aligns well with Gov. Kay Ivey and state leaders’ goal of improving the state’s labor force participation rate, which is among the lowest in the country at 57.5 percent and well below the national rate of 62 percent.
Given the state’s goal of increasing labor force participation and the commission’s goal of finding permanent employment for Alabama residents who leave the criminal justice system, Ward pointed to the paramount role the Washington agency could play in halving the recidivism rate.
“We’ve seen this many times at the PREP Center. These people get good, meaningful work and are never seen by the justice system again,” Ward said.
Re-entry 2030
Alabama’s efforts to reduce recidivism are part of the national Reentry 2030 initiative, launched in 2022 by the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments. Alabama is the second state to join the initiative. As of August, five states have joined the initiative.
Two representatives from the Justice Center attended the Commission of Inquiry meeting. Nicole Jarrett shared with the Commission what her team had heard as the most commonly cited obstacle for those leaving the criminal justice system.
“They face huge challenges when it comes to safe and stable housing, and we know that without that, the best reintegration plans fail if people don’t have safe housing,” Jarrett said. “That’s the biggest challenge in reintegration that people cite.”
Jarrett told the commission that her team has already completed on-site visits and evaluations and could begin the recommendation process by October to develop an action plan to reduce the state’s recidivism rate.
Although this was a lofty goal, Ward concluded the meeting with an optimistic assessment of his ability to halve the recidivism rate.
“It’s an ambitious goal, but I think that with the unified, bipartisan support we’ve seen on this issue over the years, we can really make a difference in making society a better and safer place for people after prison,” Ward said.
“Roadmap for the future”
After the meeting, Ward told Alabama Daily News his confidence in the state’s ability to achieve that goal by 2030, citing past successes as a “roadmap for the future.”
“So far, in the last two and a half years at the Perry County PREP center, there has not been a single graduate taken back into custody,” he told ADN.
“They were placed in job placement services, which was great. Our day centres are not residential, but their reoffending rate is still below 10%. So we have a model, but we all need to work together to implement it.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Alexander Willis and originally published by Alabama Daily News. It is reprinted with permission.
