By Margaret Love & Rob Poggenklass

At the beginning of each year since 2017, CCRC has issued a report on legislative enactments in the year just ended, new laws aimed at reducing the barriers faced by people with a criminal record in the workplace, at the ballot box, and in many other areas of daily life. These annual reports document the steady progress of what our 2020 report characterized as “a full-fledged law reform movement” aimed at restoring rights and dignity to individuals who have successfully navigated the criminal law system. In the three years between 2019 and 2021, more than 400 new record reforms were enacted. Many states enacted new laws every year, and all but two states enacted at least one significant new law during this period. A full appreciation of the scope of this movement can be gained by reviewing the detailed 50-state charts and state-by-state profiles in our Restoration of Rights Project. The modern law reform movement reflected in our annual reports is bipartisan, grounded in and inspired by the circumstance that almost a third of adults in the United States now have a criminal record, entangling them in a web of legal restrictions and discrimination that permanently excludes them from full participation in the community. It reflects a public recognition that the “internal exile” of such a significant portion of society is not only unsafe and unfair, but it is also profoundly inefficient. We are pleased to present our report on new laws enacted in 2022, titled The Frontiers of Dignity: Clean Slate and Other Criminal Record Reforms in 2022. While this report shows that the legislative momentum gathering since 2018 slowed somewhat in the past year, there has still been progress, with more new laws enacted this year than in 2018 when the current reform movement took off in earnest.

Washington, DC: Collateral Consequences Resource Center, 2023. 43p.

By Clarence Okoh & Isabel Coronado

Community supervision, or community corrections, refers to a court-ordered period of correctional supervision served outside of a correctional facility. Some policymakers insist that “community supervision” is a viable path to combat mass incarceration. However, mounting evidence makes clear that “mass supervision” is not a solution; instead, it is a leading driver of mass criminalization, especially in Black communities and other communities of color. Mass supervision’s broad range of economic, legal, and social disadvantages trap millions of individuals in cycles of carceral predation and second-class citizenship. To address this crisis, policymakers must envision an entirely new paradigm to support the needs of individuals returning home from correctional facilities. This paradigm must break cycles of correctional punishment while insisting on systemic redress and repair for communities that have carried the heaviest burdens of mass criminalization.

This report offers insights to help policymakers create that new paradigm. For this report, we interviewed over two dozen community advocates, practitioners, and systems-impacted individuals concentrated in three states–Arizona, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin–to understand better how state community supervision systems impede or support economic opportunity, with a particular focus on parole supervision.

What emerged from those conversations was a consensus about the need for a new legal and policy paradigm that we term “community repair.” Community repair offers an entirely different relationship between the state and systems-impacted individuals. Community repair is an anti-carceral policy approach that advocates for removing corrections and law enforcement from the reentry process altogether—recognizing that public investments in meeting basic needs such as employment, housing, and health care hold the most significant promise in disrupting mass supervision and incarceration. This framework goes further by insisting that the state must address present harms and redress the multigenerational harms of mass supervision on families and communities impacted by the criminal legal system.

Based on our conversations with stakeholders and an extensive scan of policy developments at the state and national levels, we offer recommendations for harm reduction and systems transformation of community supervision.

Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy - CLASP, 2022. 28p.

By Sarah Hean, Siv Elin Nord Sæbjørnsen, Trude Fløystad Eines & Cecilie Katrine Utheim Grønvik

Abstract Many organisations offer mentoring schemes to support people leaving prison and resettle back into the community. Mentorship relationships are complex but despite this, there remains limited theoretical and/or research informed tools to guide mentorship practices and hereby the success of ex-prisoner mentorship. The aim of the paper is to contribute to this shortfall by presenting a theoretically informed framework to assist reflection on mentorship practices and the mentorship relationship: the Recognition Reflection Framework (RRF). The framework has potential to provide mentors with a tool to reflect on ex-prisoners´ need for recognition of worth if they are to desist from crime. The paper describes the theoretical development and preliminary validation of this reflection framework, underpinned by a strengths-based mentoring approach, and developed through the merger of concepts from recognition theory, person centred care and therapeutic alliances. We present this framework as a means through which mentors can reflect on how they may specifically contribute to secondary and tertiary desistance, as well as reflect on ways they can personally develop a constructive mentor-client relationship.

British Journal of Community Justice. 26/07/2023.

By Annie Harper, Callie Ginapp, Tommaso Bardelli, Alyssa Grimshaw & Marissa Justen & Alaa Mohamedali & Isaiah Thomas & Lisa Puglisi

People involved with the criminal justice system in the United States are disproportionately low-income and indebted. The experience of incarceration intensifies financial hardship, including through worsening debt. Little is known about how people who are incarcerated and their families are impacted by debt and how it affects their reentry experience. We conducted a scoping review to identify what is known about the debt burden on those who have been incarcerated and their families and how this impacts their lives. We searched 14 databases from 1990 to 2019 for all original research addressing financial debt held by those incarcerated in the United States, and screened articles for relevance and extracted data from pertinent studies. These 31 studies selected for inclusion showed that this population is heavily burdened by debt that was accumulated in three general categories: debt directly from criminal justice involvement such as LFOs, pre-existing debt that compounded during incarceration, and debts accrued during reentry for everyday survival. Debt was generally shown to have a negative effect on financial well-being, reentry, family structure, and mental health. Debts from LFOs and child support are very common among the justice-involved population and are largely unpayable. Other forms of debt likely to burden this population remain largely understudied. Extensive reform is necessary to lessen the burden of debt on the criminal justice population in order to improve reentry outcomes and quality of life.

American Journal of Criminal Justice (2021) 46:250–278

By  Advancement Project National Office, One Voice and Mississippi Votes.

Our Voices, Our Votes: Felony Disenfranchisement and Re-entry in Mississippi, a new report by One Voice Mississippi, Mississippi Votes, and Advancement Project National Office analyzes how Mississippi silences those with prior felony convictions and creates reentry barriers for returning citizens. Using statistics, national data, and personal stories from directly impacted Mississippians, the report shines a light on what people with felony convictions are up against. The report details how the state’s Jim Crow legacy not only fails to assist returning citizens, but permanently disenfranchise them. With this report, organizers hope to bring change to the Mississippi criminal legal system and restore voting rights for all incarcerated citizens who have served their prison term.

Los Angeles: Advancement Project / One Voice / Mississippi Votes, 2021. 29p.

Kyle J. Bares1, Thomas J. Mowen

Emerging research has shown that the parole officer, much like friends and family, can be an important source of social support for returning persons. While this body of literature is growing, existing research provides little insight into understanding how specific types (e.g., interpersonal and/or professional) of parole officer support matter. Using panel data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, results of mixed-effects models demonstrate that greater levels of parole officer support are associated with decreased odds of reincarceration. Furthermore, parole officer professional support (e.g., providing correct information) exerts a more robust effect than interpersonal support (e.g., listening and caring). Findings suggest policy makers should consider programming to strengthen the professional relationship between the parole officer and returning person. 

Crime Delinq. 2020 June ; 66(6-7): 1023–1051 

By Jeremy Travis; Elizabeth M. Cincotta and Amy L. Solomon

With incarceration rates in America at record high levels, the criminal justice system now touches the lives of millions of children each year. The imprisonment of nearly three-quarters of a million parents disrupts parent-child relationships, alters the networks of familial support, and places new burdens on governmental services such as schools, foster care, adoption agencies, and youth-serving organizations. Few studies have explored the impact of parental incarceration on young children or identified the needs that arise from such circumstances. Little attention has focused on how communities, social service agencies, health care providers, and the criminal justice system can work collaboratively to better meet the needs of the families left behind. This policy brief is intended to help focus attention on these hidden costs of our criminal justice policies.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2005. 12p.

By Jennifer Rosenberg

Maternal imprisonment has particular aspects and creates special challenges for families, policy makers and prison authorities alike, including the question of babies and young children being in prison with their mothers. However, any parental imprisonment impacts on the children. Some of these impacts may be the same, or similar, irrespective of whether the imprisoned parent is the mother or the father. Others may be completely different. Since QUNO’s previous research and publications have focussed primarily on the effect of maternal imprisonment, this paper, drawing on secondary sources, seeks to build on and complement these by identifying the similarities and differences in relation to the effect of paternal imprisonment on children.

Geneva, SWIT: Quaker United Nations Office, 2009. 50p.

By Erin Jacobs Valentine

More than 1.6 million people are incarcerated in prisons in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those released from prison often face daunting obstacles as they seek to reintegrate into their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the community.

The Joyce Foundation’s Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration (TJRD), also funded by the JEHT Foundation and the U.S. Department of Labor, tested employment programs for former prisoners in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, using a rigorous random assignment design. MDRC led the evaluation, along with the Urban Institute and the University of Michigan. The project focused on transitional jobs programs that provide temporary subsidized jobs, support services, and job placement help. Transitional jobs are seen as a promising model for former prisoners and for other disadvantaged groups.

In 2007-2008, more than 1,800 men who had recently been released from prison were assigned, at random, to a transitional jobs program or to a program providing basic job search assistance but no subsidized jobs. The research team tracked both groups using state data on employment and recidivism. Because of the random assignment design, one can be confident that significant differences that emerged between the groups are attributable to the services each group received.

This is the final report in the TJRD project. It assesses how the transitional jobs programs affected employment and recidivism during the two years after people entered the study.More than 1.6 million people are incarcerated in prisons in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those released from prison often face daunting obstacles as they seek to reintegrate into their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the community.

This is the final report in the TJRD project. It assesses how the transitional jobs programs affected employment and recidivism during the two years after people entered the study.

New York: MDRC, 2012. 78p.

By A.A.T. Ramakers

Practically all prisoners eventually return to free society. Considering their high rates of subsequent recidivism, more insight into post-prison circumstances is vital. Such knowledge is scarce, and it also remained unclear thus far to what extent imprisonment caused these individuals to lose their integration with the community. Scholars, professionals and prisoners themselves note that the path to a successful reentry critically depends on the transition to employment. Yet, imprisonment bars offenders from employment during imprisonment and might also limit their post-prison employment prospects. Using data of the Prison Project – a longitudinal study of almost 2,000 prisoners – this thesis examines men’s labor market experiences before and after imprisonment and studies whether recidivism risks are lower among employed versus unemployed ex-prisoners. The results show that most prisoners face a severe human capital deficit even long before they enter prison. After release many remain unable to (re)integrate into the labor market. Only longer spells (exceeding six months) seem to further deteriorate the already poor employment prospects. Among working ex-prisoners, those who are able to return to a previous employer or hold down their job during the first half year following release recidivate significantly less.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2014. 217p.