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Stu Kantor, (202) 261-5283, skantor@ui.urban.org
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WASHINGTON, D.C., March 18, 2003—The number of inmates released annually from Maryland prisons climbed 74 percent from 1980 to 2001, but only a small fraction received help transitioning to life beyond prison gates, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Urban Institute.
The report, "A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in Maryland," examines the policy context surrounding Maryland reentry, the significant changes in incarceration in the state, the characteristics of Maryland's returning inmates, the geographic distribution of released prisoners, and the social and economic climates of the communities that are home to the highest concentrations of returning prisoners. Key sources of data for the report include the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy.
The report was made possible with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Open Society Institute-Baltimore, the Abell Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention.
In 2001, the State of Maryland released 9,448 prisoners who had been sentenced to more than a year in prison. Of these, 97 percent stayed in the state, with well over half returning to one jurisdiction in the state, Baltimore City. The flow was even further concentrated in six highly disadvantaged Baltimore communities, which each received 159 to 277 prisoners: Southwest Baltimore, Greater Rosemont, Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park, Greenmount East, Clifton-Berea, and Southern Park Heights. Baltimore County, at 10 percent, and Prince George's County, at 6 percent, were among the other locales to which the most prisoners returned.
"From the perspective of these communities, returning prisoners present an array of challenges, including meeting immediate housing and job needs, ensuring public safety, lowering the high recidivism rate, combating drug-use relapses, and shouldering new burdens on already strained service networks," note report authors Nancy G. La Vigne and Vera Kachnowski from the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center.
Multiple Factors Thwart Assistance
Many factors frustrate effective preparation of prisoners reentering society. Maryland's rising prison population has placed a strain on already limited programming resources. Fiscal constraints and priorities preclude the state from offering programs to all inmates who are eligible and interested in participating. Inmates are serving shorter terms than in the past and thus have less opportunity to take advantage of in-prison programs.
"Despite these challenges," say La Vigne and Kachnowski, "the state has launched a number of initiatives that suggest Maryland is ahead of many other states in understanding the importance of reentry preparation and is beginning to do something about it. Clearly, more can be done to address the magnitude of the reentry issue."
Portrait Details
Understanding prisoners' needs and the pathways to reintegration is key to improving the safety and well-being of the communities and families most affected by the return of prisoners.
Prisoner Characteristics: Of the 9,448 prisoners released in 2001, 91 percent were male, 76 percent were black, and 32 percent served time for drug offenses. Seventy percent had been in prison before, and 22 percent had been parole violators at some point in their criminal careers.
Prison Population Increase: Between 1980 and 2001, Maryland's prison population more than tripled, jumping from 7,731 to 23,752. The growth was due in large part to rising crime rates and arrests, more drug-offender admissions, and more technical and new-crime parole violations. At the same time the number of released prisoners nearly doubled from 5,436 to 9,448.
Release Conditions and Violations: Only 22 percent of prisoners in 2001—down from 42 percent in 1990—went before a parole board to present a post-release home or employment plan. The number of people returned to prison for violating terms of their post-prison supervision rose more than sevenfold from 1980 to 1998, reflecting an increase from 7 percent to 31 percent of all admissions.
Length of Sentences: Average sentences and time served in Maryland declined from 1980 to 2001. The share of prisoners given sentences of 1-3 years, for instance, increased from 39 percent to 44 percent. Inmates serving shorter terms are less likely to participate in prison programming that might prepare them for their release.
Program Participation: Programs are available to only a small portion of the prison population. In 2001, 17 percent of Maryland inmates took part in educational or vocational programs, 45 percent had work assignments such as sanitation or food service, 7 percent participated in a work-release program, and 31 percent were in no programmatic or work activities.
Community Services: Connecting to reentry services outside prison is difficult. Many organizations in Baltimore that provide these kinds of services, such as employment and housing assistance, are located in central Baltimore, some distance from the areas receiving the most ex-prisoners.
"Government policies and the characteristics of Maryland's released inmates suggest that successful reintegration is an uphill battle. Criminal and substance abuse histories put returning prisoners at a disadvantage both socially and economically, and state and local laws and policies limiting access to housing assistance, food stamps, and other aid may hinder, rather than help, the reentry process," say La Vigne and Kachnowski.
"Returning Home" Initiative
Maryland was selected as the pilot site for the Urban Institute's three-year, multistate initiative to better understand the challenges of prisoner reentry. Prisoner reentry has become a pressing issue in Maryland and around the nation. Nationwide, an estimated 630,000 inmates were released from state and federal prisons in 2001, a fourfold increase over the past two decades. The costs of unsuccessful reentry are high, especially with regard to public safety, since nearly two-thirds of prisoners will be re-arrested within three years of release.
The Urban Institute's Returning Home initiative is investigating such issues as how community characteristics affect individual post-release outcomes, the extent to which prisoners are drawn back into drug use, the role of families and others in preventing recidivism, and the unique challenges faced by different groups of ex-prisoners. Additional reports about reentry in Maryland, based on interviews with returning prisoners, their families, and community representatives and other data, will be issued in the coming months. The initiative will also produce major longitudinal studies of reentry in Illinois, Ohio, and Texas.
"A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in Maryland," by Nancy G. La Vigne and Vera Kachnowski with Jeremy Travis, Rebecca Naser, and Christy Visher, is available online. It is part of the Urban Institute's ongoing research on crime and justice issues. For more on this subject, go to http://urban.org/r/crime.cfm.
The Urban Institute (www.urban.org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examines the social, economic, and governance challenges facing the nation.
For more information about the funders, go to the Annie E. Casey Foundation (www.aecf.org), the Open Society Institute-Baltimore (www.soros.org/baltimore), the Abell Foundation (www.abell.org), the Russell Sage Foundation (www.russellsage.org), and the Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention (www.goccp.org).
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