Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Amy L. Solomon on Crime Prevention

Working with inmates who leave jails as well as prisons is a milestone marking a major opportunity to reduce crime in Philadelphia and across the country. Amy Solomon and Jenny Osborne explain why in their Philadelphia Inquirer commentary.

In order to understand the extent to which Weed and Seed sites are engaged in prisoner reentry efforts, the Department of Justice's Community Capacity Development Office, the Center for Community Safety of Winston-Salem State University, and the Urban Institute surveyed Weed and Seed sites around the country. This report summarizes the responses from the survey, illustrating the various ways that Weed and Seed sites are focusing on prisoner reentry and working with partner organizations to reduce recidivism and create safer, healthier communities.

This report describes the effects of prisoner reentry on communities and the impact on community safety and public perceptions of crime. The role of the police is examined by outlining the benefits of applying community policing strategies to prisoner reentry and exploring opportunities for police involvement. The report highlights specific examples from the field of how new police roles in prisoner reentry have been put into practice across the nation. A discussion of the potential organizational and community-level challenges to expanding law enforcement's role in reentry follows, along with suggested strategies for overcoming these obstacles and opportunities for advancing police reentry initiatives from both a practical and a policy perspective.

The Spring 2006 issue of the American Probation and Parole Association's Perspectives journal (Vol. 30, No. 2) features a collection of articles intended to extend the dialogue sparked by the Urban Institute's report, Does Parole Work? Analyzing the Impact of Postprison Supervision on Rearrest Outcomes. This article, posted with permission from the American Probation and Parole Association, begins with an argument for why we should study supervision, followed by an overview of the initial study. It concludes with some thoughts about policy opportunities for the field, arguing that the current focus on prisoner reentry provides a timely opportunity to "reinvent" parole.

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 Urban Institute produced this report 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 Urban Institute conducted a national scan of reentry programs that are addressing the needs and risks facing returning prisoners, their families, and communities. The report benefited significantly from the input of national experts who nominated programs that are implementing innovative approaches to easing the reentry process in their local communities.

About 600,000 individuals - roughly 1,600 a day - will be released from state and federal prisons this year to return to their communities. On one level, this transition from prison to community might be viewed as unremarkable. Ever since prisons were built, individuals have faced the challenges of moving from confinement in correctional institutions to liberty on the street.