Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Amy L. Solomon on Corrections and Prisoners

The traditional approach to incarceration is to keep inmates locked up—away from society—to keep us safe. With little treatment and transition planning, most individuals are released with the same problems that got them locked up in the first place. In the past decade, we have realized that almost everyone who is incarcerated will eventually return home; this is especially true of the jail population. The big question: how do we incarcerate and release individuals in a way that makes them less likely to reoffend and more likely to work, support their families, pay taxes, and be productive members of society?

This report synthesizes the Education Reentry Roundtable. It surveys the current landscape of correctional education, discussing both the educational needs of people involved in the criminal justice system and the programs being provided to meet those needs; reviews research on the effectiveness of correctional education and guiding principles for effective programming; discusses the issues involved in providing education in correctional settings and identifies some potential responses to these challenges. The report closes by looking to the future and highlighting key issues and new directions in research, policy, and practice. More information about the Reentry Roundtables can be found at http://www.urban.org/projects/reentry-roundtable/index.cfm.

In 2007, the Urban Institute convened two meetings with national experts on the topic of community supervision. The goal of these meetings was to articulate participants' collective best thinking on parole and probation, violation and revocation practices, and what contributes to effective community supervision. Over the course of these meetings, participants identified the supervision policies and strategies that would help policy makers and practitioners improve public safety and make the best use of taxpayers' dollars. The 13 strategies outlined in this brief are the result of these discussions and a review of the research literature.

In 2007, the Urban Institute convened two meetings with national experts on the topic of parole supervision. The goal of the meetings was to articulate participants' collective best thinking on parole supervision, violation, and revocation practices and to identify policies and strategies that would help policymakers and practitioners improve public safety and make the best use of taxpayer dollars. This paper, the result of those meetings and a review of the research literature, describes 13 key strategies to enhance reentry outcomes along with examples from the field. A companion Brief, published by Pew Charitable Trusts, is available at http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411800.

Using data from the Urban Institute's Returning Home study, this brief examines post release supervision experiences in Illinois, Ohio, and Texas. The authors focus on addressing three questions: What are the parole experiences of those being released from prison? How do experiences on supervision affect post release outcomes? Does supervision benefit some groups more than others? Overall, parolees reported positive relationships with their parole officers but received relatively little tangible assistance finding a job or drug treatment program. Parole supervision was associated with increased employment and reduced substance use among former prisoners, but had almost no impact on self-reported crime or rearrest.

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.

Geared toward jail practitioners who are working to improve reentry in their jurisdictions, The Jail Administrator's Toolkit for Reentry provides key elements of the reentry process from jail staff issues and assessment screens to identifying community resources and coordinating stakeholders. The Toolkit also offers examples and materials taken from around the country to assist jail practitioners in developing reentry strategies that can serve a variety of jail populations, whether pretrial or sentenced, and in a variety of jail jurisdictions.

Each year, U.S. jails process an estimated 12 million admissions and releases. Substance addiction, job and housing instability, mental illness, and a host of health problems are part of the day-to-day realities for a significant share of this population. Given that more than 80 percent of inmates are incarcerated for less than one month, jails have little time or capacity to address these deep-rooted and often overlapping issues. Life After Lockup synthesizes key findings from the Jail Reentry Roundtable and examines opportunities on the jail-to-community continuum where reentry-focused interventions can make a difference.

The Massachusetts Recidivism Study aims to better understand the experiences of recidivists and how their previous incarceration and time in the community relate to their returns to prison. The study consists of three interrelated components: an analysis of DOC administrative data, interviews with recidivists as they return to prison, and parole officer focus groups. This report provides findings from the analysis of administrative data on the 2002 release cohort comparing recidivists with nonrecidivists. The report compares the two groups across demographics, criminal history, offense type, time served, release type, and in-prison reentry preparation.

The Massachusetts Recidivism Study aims to better understand the experiences of recidivists and how their previous incarceration and time in the community relate to their returns to prison. This report presents findings from interviews with male prisoners returned to the DOC within three years of release. The report describes respondents' incarceration experiences, preparation for reentry, and life in the community, as well as criminal offending and the circumstances leading up to their reincarceration. We also examine the role of parole supervision in prisoner reentry and the connection between technical parole violations and underlying criminal behavior.