The Urban Institute has partnered with municipalities, state and federal agencies, community-based organizations, and other groups to work toward developing innovative strategies to address the challenges of prisoner reentry. The Urban Institute's chief role in these endeavors is to develop an empirical base from which to frame the problem-solving efforts of these strategic partnerships. This section briefly highlights the key partnerships and collaborative efforts in which the Urban Institute has been engaged.
Launched with the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Reentry Mapping Network (RMN) is a partnership among community-based organizations and the Urban Institute, designed to create community change through the mapping and analysis of neighborhood-level data related to reentry and community well-being. Following the successful model of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership, RMN partners use mapping to pinpoint neighborhoods that experience high concentrations of returning prisoners and to examine community capacity to address the challenges that prisoner reentry presents. These findings are used to inform and develop targeted responses to address reentry-related problems. They help corrections officials, community organizations, and service providers develop a better understanding of the dynamics and correlates of prisoner reentry at the local level; engage local stakeholders and practitioners in developing strategies to address reentry-related challenges; and facilitate greater coordination and collaboration among state and local agencies and organizations around this work.
National Governors Association Reentry Policy Academy
The National Governors Association launched the Prisoner Reentry State Policy Academy in the summer of 2003. The goal of the Policy Academy is to help state governors and other state policymakers develop and implement prisoner reentry strategies to reduce costly recidivism rates. The Urban Institute provides research and technical assistance to inform the Academy's efforts and activities in the seven participating states: Rhode Island, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and Virginia. In each of these states, Urban Institute researchers documented incarceration and release trends, characteristics of returning prisoners, release and supervision policies and practices, and the geographic distribution of released prisoners. These reports are presented in state portraits on reentry for each of the seven states and are available online at the Justice Policy Center (http://jpc.urban.org) and the National Governors Association (http://www.nga.org/center/reentry).
Council of State Governments Re-Entry Policy Council
The Urban Institute is one of 10 partners of the Re-Entry Policy Council (RPC), established in 2001 by the Council of State Governments (CSG) to assist state government officials with the growing number of people leaving prison and jail and returning to the community. The RPC is made up of key leaders and experts at the local, state, and national level, including criminal justice officials and practitioners; state legislators; workforce development, housing, health, mental health, and substance abuse officials; and service providers. The Report of the Re-Entry Policy Council, authored by CSG and the 10 project partners, provides recommendations for the safe and successful return of prisoners to the community, reflecting the common ground the Policy Council reached during a series of meetings. More information on the Reentry Policy Council and access to the full report is available at http://www.reentrypolicy.org.
New Jersey Reentry Roundtable
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute partnered with the Urban Institute to convene a Reentry Roundtable in October 2003. The Roundtable, followed by a series of topic-based meetings, examined the phenomenon of prisoner reentry in New Jersey and resulted in a strategic set of recommendations. The full report of the New Jersey Reentry Roundtable is available at http://www.njisj.org/reports/cominghome_report.html.
Philadelphia Reentry Roundtable
To compliment their analysis of the Philadelphia Prison System population, the Urban Institute helped to develop a community-level roundtable on reentry. Using the same model developed by the Urban Institute at the national level, the Philadelphia Roundtable sought to gather policymakers, researchers, service providers, community members, and other key stakeholders to assess and develop a strategic response to the challenge of prisoner reentry in one Philadelphia neighborhood, Frankford. Unlike other Reentry Roundtables that sought broad policy objectives, the Frankford-Philadelphia Roundtable was intended to facilitate the development of interventions that resolve practical and logistical problems within a targeted community.
Winston-Salem State University Center for Community Safety
The Urban Institute has partnered with the Center for Community Safety to provide strategic assistance in addressing the reentry challenges in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Urban Institute first collaborated with the Center for Community Safety on three efforts to gain an understanding of the reentry issues in the Winston-Salem community: focus groups with former prisoners, asset maps of resources in the community, and a meeting of community members on the topic of prisoner reentry. The Center for Community Safety and the Urban Institute are currently working together on reentry efforts in federal Weed and Seed sites, and the Center has become a recent partner in the Urban Institute's Reentry Mapping Network. More information on the Center for Community Safety is available at http://www.wssu.edu/WSSU/About/Partnerships/Center+for+Community+Safety.
The Reentry Roundtable series is an ongoing forum that brings together accomplished academics, experienced practitioners, community leaders, policymakers, advocates, and former prisoners to push the envelope of research and practice. Since its inception in 2000, the Urban Institute has convened eight meetings of the Roundtable. To date, topics have covered prisoner reentry as it relates to employment, public health, youth development, public safety, housing and homelessness, and institutions of civil society, such as businesses and the faith community. The goal of the Roundtable series is to sharpen the nation's thinking on the issues of prisoner reintegration and to foster policy innovations that will improve outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. More information is available on the Justice Policy Center's Prisoner Reentry web site at http://www.urban.org/Pressroom/prisonerreentry.cfm.
