The Failure of Parole: Rethinking the Role of the State in Reentry

NEW MEXICO LAW REVIEW The Failure of Parole: Rethinking the Role of the State in Reentry THE FAILURE OF PAROLE: RETHINKING THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN REENTRY

I. INTRODUCTION

"When I first came home, I was nervous. I didn't know what I was doing or which road to take. And then [parole] want[s] me to do all these programs, all these appointments and all this other stuff .... It makes it even harder for one to be able to go out and get a job. You know when you have to be at an appointment at eight in the morning and they keep you there 'til eleven; then you know, you got a job interview at nine but parole is telling you, this is first, you can't do nothing about it."-Paul

The problems described by Paul are not uncommon. In two thousand nine, more than seven hundred thousand people were released from state and federal prisons. The vast majority of them returned to the communities from which they came and faced a variety of challenges including reconnecting with family and peers, finding housing and employment, and more generally avoiding criminal behavior. This process of return is commonly referred to as reentry. For many people, reentry is further complicated by the fact that despite moves by some states in the last few decades to abolish parole, most people released from prison are still released to parole or post-prison supervision. People released to parole are generally subjected to a large number of conditions, including regular reporting to a parole officer, avoiding police contact, submitting to drug testing, and finding and maintaining employment. As one commentator has noted: "Although some conditions are clearly aimed at supporting the [individual] in transition, the total effect may be to create another layer of challenge to what is an already daunting situation."

Over the last two decades, and culminating with the signing of the Second Chance Act, federal, state, and local governments have developed a variety of approaches to reentry, both in prison prior to release and in the community after release. Many states have turned to their parole supervision agencies to run their post-release reentry services. Given that most people released from prison are supervised by parole ten. This article deals only with post-release reentry; for comprehensive discussions of reentry, see REENTRY POLICY COUNCIL REPORT and TRAVIS.

agencies and that parole has traditionally had a rehabilitation function, this might not be a surprising move. However, despite the fact that some of the most important scholarly work in this area examines both reentry and parole, it appears that no one has asked whether parole agencies should be providing reentry services.

This article examines whether parole is the appropriate institution to be providing post-release reentry services. Based on interviews conducted with people on parole in New York City and a review of prior research on parole outcomes, it concludes that it is not. Not only does parole fail to help people reenter society, it can sometimes hinder the reentry process. Part two describes in more detail the challenges faced by people leaving prison and looks at how overcoming these challenges can affect a person's ability to reenter society successfully. It also briefly examines some ways in which governments and communities have addressed reentry issues. Part three describes the origins of parole and looks at how it has changed over the last forty years. It explores changes in parole release mechanisms as well as the shift in parole supervision styles from a casework approach to a surveillance approach. Part four examines the effect of parole supervision on reentry and concludes that parole fails at both of the goals of reentry-promoting both public safety and the reintegration of former prisoners. Finally, Part five suggests some ways to improve reentry outcomes. First, it suggests that parole supervision be eliminated for people at a low risk of recidivism. Second, it proposes that the provision of reentry services be decoupled from the surveillance and monitoring aspects of parole, and that all people leaving prison, regardless of whether they are released to supervision or not, be provided with a reentry specialist to assist them with the reentry process. Finally, it suggests some ways to improve current supervision practices by adopting evidence-based practices and incorporating the goals and priorities of the individual under supervision.

II. THE REENTRY PHENOMENON

How to cope with the huge numbers of people released from prisons and jails every year is one of the biggest issues facing the criminal justice system today. It is widely acknowledged that the number of people released from prison has been steadily increasing over the last decade, largely as a result of the dramatic growth in the prison population since the nineteen seventies. In two thousand nine, almost seven hundred thirty thousand people were released from state and federal prisons, an increase of more than twenty percent since two thousand. The return of so many people to their communities presents many challenges to the policymakers who must balance the interests of society (in public safety and accountability) with the reintegration of former prisoners. Many of the people released from prison will return to prison as a result of a parole violation.

"Reentry is the process by which individuals return to communities from prison or jail custody" with the goal of reintegrating into society. The challenges facing people leaving prison have been well-documented and range from social challenges, such as reconnecting with family, to generally avoiding criminal activity. This process is further complicated by the many indirect legal consequences of a criminal conviction (usually referred to as "collateral consequences"), which can inhibit an individual's ability to reenter society. These collateral consequences can exacerbate many of the reentry challenges that people already face, which are described in more detail below.

People newly released from prison are often stigmatized by their time in prison and usually have to deal with a loss of social standing. While we do not know exactly why some people successfully reintegrate and others do not, we do know that strengthening pro-social connections is vital. For example, close family relationships can improve reentry outcomes. In addition, successful reentry, usually interpreted as staying crime-free, is generally associated with stable housing and employment. However, as described below, finding both housing and employment is often a daunting task for a person coming out of prison.

One of the first things that a person leaving prison needs to do is to find housing. Permanent housing allows a person to plant roots in the community to which he or she is returning, and by providing a place for communication, can make it easier to seek employment. Secure, stable housing is also almost essential for parents, particularly women, wishing to reunite with their children after release from prison. Finding such housing can be difficult, in part because of the legal impediments facing people with criminal records; under federal legislation passed in nineteen ninety-six and nineteen ninety-eight, people with drug or violent felony convictions can be prohibited from living in public housing. Additionally, an increasing number of landlords in the private sector conduct criminal background screenings and decline to offer leases to people with criminal records.

Because of these impediments, most people released from prison live with family members or intimate partners. However, some are restricted by parole conditions from staying with certain family members. In other cases, a long prison stay can lead to detachment from family and friends, who may not want the former prisoner staying with them for fear that he or she will get back in trouble. Few people released from prison have the resources to find their own housing, so many resort to living in homeless shelters or other temporary housing. This can have a negative effect on their ability to reintegrate: a two thousand two study in New York found that people on parole living in homeless shelters were seven times more likely to abscond (i.e., stop reporting) than those who had some form of housing.

In addition to finding housing, finding a job is also a key to reintegration. Research shows that there is a strong association between successful reentry and the ability to secure and maintain employment. However, former prisoners face significant barriers to obtaining employment. Many people enter prison with limited educational or vocational skills; a two thousand three Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that about forty percent of people in prison had not completed high school or its equivalent. In addition, few people receive employment-related training in prison, in part because of the abolition of Pell Grants in nineteen ninety-four. Thus, many people leaving prison lack the skills and/or qualifications to find work. Further, the stigma of a criminal conviction leaves many employers reluctant to hire former prisoners, while some occupations, including many in the health field, bar people with criminal records from obtaining licenses. Even for those people who do manage to find employment, incarceration can have negative long-term effects. For example, a recent study by the Pew Center on the States found that incarceration reduces a person's earnings by forty percent, limits his or her future economic mobility, "the ability of individuals and families to move up the income ladder over their lifetime and across generations," and can even affect the economic mobility of his or her children.

For all of these reasons, obtaining stable employment is difficult, and so while they try to find employment, many people turn to public assistance to support themselves and their families. However, federal laws enacted over the last two decades can act as barriers to the receipt of public benefits. For example, a provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of nineteen ninety-six imposes a lifetime ban on eligibility for welfare assistance and food stamps on people with a felony drug conviction. While states have the ability to opt out of or narrow the ban, only nine states have opted out entirely, nine states have left the ban intact, and the remaining thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have narrowed its scope.

In addition to the challenges of finding housing and employment, people leaving prison face a number of other problems including reconnecting with family and friends, addressing health (particularly mental health) problems, dealing with substance use issues, and regaining their civic identity. It is widely accepted that all of these problems and challenges make reentry a difficult process and can affect the likelihood of reintegration.

Developing ways of dealing with all of these challenges and addressing reentry has become a focus of both government and community agencies. Jeremy Travis has argued that strategies to address reentry have two main goals: "to promote public safety (by reducing recidivism rates), and to promote prisoner reintegration (by connecting returning prisoners with the indicia of citizenship, including work, family, peer groups, community, and democratic responsibilities and participation such as voting)." To achieve these goals, both community and government agencies have established a wide variety of reentry programs and interventions, upwards of ten thousand individual programs nationwide by one count.

In the community, reentry services are provided by both community organizations and state agencies. Community organizations provide many post-release reentry services ranging from projects providing legal assistance to employment programs. At the governmental level, there is also a wide variety of initiatives and programs. Two recent innovations that have gained attention are reentry courts and comprehensive interagency initiatives.

At both the state and local level, jurisdictions have begun to rely on comprehensive interagency reentry initiatives, such as the National Institute of Corrections' Transition from Prison to the Community Initiative, that starts when an individual enters prison and continue after release. The Transition from Prison to the Community Initiative was launched in two thousand one with the goal of articulating a

"comprehensive and strategic approach to transition that would incorporate the lessons of evidence-based practice, emphasize the importance of collaboration, and provide a practical tool for corrections agencies to utilize." Initially the National Institute of Corrections provided technical assistance to eight states in developing or expanding their initiatives based on the Transition from Prison to the Community Initiative model. While the Transition from Prison to the Community Initiative initiatives are generally viewed positively by practitioners and show promise in reducing recidivism and increasing successful reintegration, their comprehensive nature makes them hard to evaluate.

While approaches vary significantly by state and by locality, one common feature is that at the state level, many states, including those that have adopted comprehensive initiatives, have chosen to house their post-release reentry programs and services, at least partially, in their parole agencies or rely on parole officers to provide reentry services. This decision has a number of implications, including the fact that people leaving prison without supervision often do not have access to any reentry services. In Texas, for example, of the seventy-two thousand two hundred eighteen releases from custody in two thousand nine, approximately thirty-nine thousand people were released from prison to the community without supervision and thus were not entitled to reentry services. More fundamentally, as discussed in Part Four below, the poor reentry outcomes of people on parole suggest that parole is not the appropriate institution to be providing reentry services.