This ReintegrationToday article focuses on a Broward County, Florida program aimed at training consumer "peer bridgers" to facilitate the social integration of recently released inmates. Peer bridgers are consumers who may have been imprisoned themselves at one time. The training includes a 6-week, 90-hour course that not only prepares consumers to be peer bridgers, but can also function to train them as trainers of others.

To improve the employment outcomes for ex-offenders, Baltimore Mayor's Office of Employment Development (MOED) facilitated the creation of the Baltimore's citywide Ex-offender Task Force (EOFT) in October 2002. EOTF membership includes more than 100 government agencies, nonprofit and community-based service providers, major foundations, advocacy groups, and faith leaders. In December 2003, EOFT issued a report that outlines barriers to effective service delivery and provides recommendations for the service improvements. To facilitate prioritizing the recommendations from the report and secure additional funding to support those priorities, a Mayoral-appointed Ex-Offender Employment Steering Committee was created in March 2004 and started the second phase of Baltimore's initiative.

Under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF), Caliber Associates is evaluating the pre- and post-release effects of the faith-based Kairos Horizon program. Among the goals of the faith-based residential rehabilitation program are to increase personal and family responsibility, and employability among prisoners and ex-prisoners. In addition to the evaluation, Caliber is contracted to draft a series of policy-relevant issue briefs that discuss trends in corrections, the role of religion in reentry, and results of current research. This first issue brief entitled “Prisoner Reentry, Religion and Research” points out that the faith community is perhaps an invaluable partner in prisoner reentry - promoting public safety via the provision of services to support the successful reintegration of returning prisoners.

This resource is the second in a series of policy-relevant issue briefs by Caliber Associates, Inc. that discuss trends in corrections, the role of religion in reentry, and results of current research. The first issue brief entitled "Prisoner Reentry, Religion and Research" points out that the faith community is perhaps an invaluable partner in prisoner reentry - promoting public safety via the provision of services to support the successful reintegration of returning prisoners. This brief contends that the Kairos Horizon program is an invaluable partner in navigating an unchartered prisoner reentry landscape. Caliber is under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) to evaluate the pre- and post-release effects of the faith-based Kairos Horizon program.

This resource is the third in a series of policy-relevant issue briefs by Caliber Associates, Inc. that discuss trends in corrections, the role of religion in reentry, and results of current research. This first issue brief entitled "Prisoner Reentry, Religion and Research" points out that the faith community is perhaps an invaluable partner in prisoner reentry - promoting public safety via the provision of services to support the successful reintegration of returning prisoners. The second brief contends that the Kairos Horizon program is an invaluable partner in navigating an unchartered prisoner reentry landscape. This brief reviews the final findings of this study. Caliber is under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) to evaluate the pre- and post-release effects of the faith-based Kairos Horizon program. These issue briefs complement and report out on the research effort.

This FASTEN mentoring manual is designed as a guide for those who have chosen to take the incarceration of a child's parent as a point of intervention, with mentoring as a vehicle. The manual uses the Amachi program as a model to show how faith-based organizations, secular nonprofits, and public organizations can work together to provide caring and trusting relationships for these children.

Authored by William Bales, Laura E. Bedard, Susan T. Quinn, David Ensley, Glen Holley, Alan Duffee, and Stephanie Sanford. Drawing on data from Florida, this Florida State University study compares the rates of recidivism among inmates released from private and government-operated prisons. By expanding the sample size, the study makes significant advancements over previous research in terms of methodology and establishing comparability between the public and private release cohorts on factors known to influence recidivism rates.

The Urban Institute released a report that is a part of the Returning Home initiative that develops a deeper understanding of the reentry experiences of returning prisoners, their families, and their neighborhoods. The report describes the process of prisoner reentry by examining the policy context of reentry in Illinois, the characteristics of Illinois' returning inmates, the geographic distribution of returning prisoners, and the social and economic climates of the communities that are home to the highest concentrations of returning prisoners. The report consolidates existing data on incarceration and release trends and presents a new analysis of data on Illinois prisoners released in 2001. The report is based on the data from several sources - the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, and Census data compiled by the Metro Chicago Information Center.

The Urban Institute released a report that is a part of the Returning Home initiative that develops a deeper understanding of the reentry experiences of returning prisoners, their families, and their neighborhoods. The report describes the process of prisoner reentry by examining the policy context of reentry in Texas, the characteristics of Texas's returning inmates, the geographic distribution of returning prisoners, and the social and economic climates of the communities that are home to the highest concentrations of returning prisoners.

This Urban Institute report, Outside the Walls, provides descriptions of a broad array of prisoner reentry activity across the country, as well as briefing papers that discuss what is known about reentry as it pertains to employment, health, housing, family, faith, and public safety. The report is produced in collaboration with Outreach Extensions as part of the National Media Outreach Campaign, a new effort to encourage discussion and decision-making about solution-based prisoner reentry programs among local community and faith-based organizations. The report scans reentry programs that are addressing the needs and risks facing returning prisoners, their families, and communities.