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About Reentry
Attorney General Ashcroft Announces Nationwide Effort To Reintegrate Offenders Back Into Communities
DETROIT, MICHIGAN—Forty-nine states, the District of Columbia, and the
Virgin Islands will share $100 million in grant funds through the new Serious
and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced
today. A total of 68 grants will be awarded to support efforts to ensure public
safety and reduce victimization by helping returning offenders become productive
members of their communities, providing education, job and life skills training,
and substance abuse treatment, while carefully monitoring their activities
after release.
The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative is an unprecedented collaboration
among the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human
Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, and Veterans Affairs.
“This initiative helps provide individuals who have been released from
prison the opportunity to become productive citizens and members of society,” said
Ashcroft. “The reentry programs aid in making sure these individuals
will not return to a life of crime.”
An estimated 630,000 offenders were released from prison last year, with an
estimated 160,000 of those being violent offenders. The Serious and Violent
Offender Reentry Initiative will build on innovative reentry efforts in states
for both juveniles and adults with the goal that these efforts serve as nationwide
prototypes. Communities will utilize existing federal, state, and local resources,
while grant funds will be used to address additional specific needs. Local
efforts will require close coordination among institutional and community corrections,
law enforcement, education, job training and placement, and other service providers,
including faith- and community-based organizations.
Reentry efforts will begin while offenders are still in correctional facilities,
continue through offenders’ transition back into the community, and help
sustain ex-offenders through services such as employment training and substance
abuse and mental health treatment. Efforts will be tailored to any one, or
combination, of the following age groups: Youth (ages 14–17), Young Adult
(ages 18–24), and Adult (ages 25+). These efforts require close coordination
among institutional corrections, law enforcement, community corrections, and
other community-based service providers.
The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative is designed to address
three stages an offender goes through when returning to the community. The
process involves education, parenting instruction, vocational training, treatment
and life skills programs while offenders are in institutions, services and
supervision as they reenter the community, and networks of agencies and individuals
to support offenders as they become productive and law-abiding members of their
communities.
The federal partners joined together to help state and local agencies navigate
the complex field of existing grant programs and to assist them in accessing,
redeploying, and leveraging those resources to support all components of a
comprehensive reentry program.
The federal partners will fund a national evaluation of the Serious and Violent
Offender Reentry Initiative to look at the long-term effectiveness of the program.
Click here for a list of grantees.
Media inquiries should be directed to OJP’s Office of Congressional
and Public Affairs at 202–307–0703.
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