Offender reentry: a returning or reformed criminal?

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, Dec, 2004 by David M. Allender

Perhaps the most vexing problem facing the criminal justice system in the United States today is how to deal with offenders who have "paid their debt to society" and are released from a structured correctional setting back into the community. Rarely does society lock up a person and "throw away the key." Instead, 95 percent of all offenders sent to state prison facilities will be released and returned to the civilian population. (1) How to address this situation has more important consequences for society than the ongoing debate about whether a prison sentence should be punitive or treatment oriented. While incarcerated, the offender, at the very least, is "warehoused" away for the protection of the general public. Upon release, however, the community will be confronted, based on policy decisions made and implemented, by either a returning criminal or a reformed offender.

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American Penology

Concern for the real purpose behind a court-imposed sentence in response to a criminal offense is not a new feature on the American political landscape. Rather, the debate goes back to the earliest period of this country's existence. A brief look at the history of penology in this country can confirm this observation. In 1787, Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, home was the site for the first meeting of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (PSAMPP). At the time of this gathering, local jails--basically holding pens that made no attempt to separate prisoners by age, sex, or offense--housed the majority of incarcerated persons. Upon adjudication of their cases, most of those convicted received sentences that entailed some form of corporal punishment or hard labor and removal from the jail population. PSAMPP members felt that this treatment of offenders was misguided and, by design, failed to correct the unacceptable behavior on the part of the prisoner. As a solution, they lobbied the government of Pennsylvania to construct Eastern State Penitentiary, a facility that opened in 1829 as the first modern-day prison. Behind its drive to build Eastern State, PSAMPP had as its goal: "The Penitentiary would not simply punish, but move the criminal toward spiritual reflection and change. The method was a Quaker-inspired system of isolation from other prisoners, with labor." (2)

To inspire their charges, Pennsylvania, at the time, built possibly the most expensive building in the United States. Equipped with central heat and running water when the White House still used wood-burning stoves and latrines, the penitentiary represented an attempt to positively affect the lives of inmates. In reality, PSAMPP's well-intentioned effort at reform led to the creation of the first "supermax" facility in the world. For 23 hours a day, inmates were confined in individual cells that had small, private exercise yards that they could or had to go into for 1 hour per day. Staff members passed food to the inmates through a slot in the cell door. Inmates had no contact with each other, and the staff restricted conversation with them to the amount necessary to operate the prison. When prisoners had to move around inside the institution, they wore hoods over their heads and faces. Eventually, inmates could exercise in a common yard together, but, for many years, they had to wear a hood with eyeholes to limit familiarity within the inmate community. In addition, the institution restricted reading material to the Bible. All of these measures were put in place to help inmates meditate and reflect on the errors they had made. PSAMPP members felt that upon reflection on their transgressions, inmates would become enlightened, which would lead to a resolve to make positive changes in their lifestyles and behaviors. Eastern State modified these practices over the years as new theories on penology altered the beliefs of those working in the field of corrections. The facility itself served as a penitentiary for 142 years, finally closing in 1971. (3)

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The history of Eastern State Penitentiary illustrates how American society, in over 200 years, has failed to reach an agreement on what it hopes to accomplish by sentencing offenders to prison. Given this historical background, it is time to make use of modern research methods to identify and implement strategies that show promise in successfully reintegrating offenders into society as productive members.

Recidivism Identified

Recent research by the Bureau of Justice Statistics helps to demonstrate the need to develop effective measures designed to assist recently released inmates. (4) The study examined prisoners released from 15 states, which returned a total of 272,111 of their charges to free society in 1994. This number represented approximately two-thirds of all inmates freed from custody that year. The researchers focused on four factors that they felt identified recidivism: "rearrest, reconviction, resentence to prison, and return to prison with or without a new sentence." (5) Their findings proved disturbing. Within 3 years, 67.5 percent of released inmates were charged with a new crime, 46.9 percent were found guilty of their latest charge, and 25.4 percent were sent to a correctional facility in response to their new offense. Violations of release conditions (technical violations, not new offenses) led to additional incarceration time for many inmates released in 1994. Considering all of the factors, a total of 51.8 percent of the inmates released in 1994 were back in prison by 1997. This human tragedy is felt not only by the inmates, their families, and friends but by society as a whole. The most obvious cost of this failure to gain compliance with societies' mores lies in the extraordinary expense of incarceration, $49,007,000 by all levels of government in 1999. (6) The victims of these offenders, however, pay a price not so readily apparent. The study estimated that before returning to prison, these offenders committed approximately 744,000 crimes between 1994 and 1997.