Former prisoners have a difficult time reintegrating into society after being released from prison. They encounter immediate difficulties throughout the transition process, such as trouble locating housing, getting in touch with families, and locating employment. Many ex-offenders have severed ties with friends and family, leaving them with nowhere to turn or no one at all. Also, it's difficult to get a work because of the criminal record and lack of skills. Without emotional, social, and financial help, they grow despairing and end up sharing housing with addicts and other ex-offenders. These people tend to relapse into the bad habits that landed them in prison. Communities play a significant role in the successful re-entry of ex-felons. The challenges of reintegration, as well the possibilities of re-offending can be significantly reduced by instituting and implementing aftercare programs for the released inmates (Nelson, Marta & Trone, 4). These programs are meant to assist the ex-inmates transits into the community, and deter them from falling back to the habits that landed them in prison.
While many ex-prisoners are leaving the prison looking forward to living differently, most lack the resources, support, as well as skills to establish a new life. Several factors work disadvantageously against them, and most of them find themselves reoffending and back in prison within one year upon their release. Aftercare programs help the individuals settle back into the society, and become better citizens.
Discussion
Although people come out of prison intending to live a transformed life, a majority do not possess support, resources, and skills to create a new life. Their past is full of drug and alcohol abuse, dysfunctional families, abusive parents, as well as poverty-wracked childhood. Also, a small percentage comes out of prison in better shape than when they were imprisoned, and a majority of them have nowhere to go. Relationships with families have been broken, and chances of employment are practically nonexistent for them. The men end up in their previous neighborhoods and lifestyles that put them in prison. Aftercare programs provide accountability, support, encouragement, and training, which are the key factors that shape the individuals into responsible, productive, as well as good fathers and husbands. Aftercare programs are of vital significance, offering men a chance to get on their feet, and of essence is training and job placement since most of the ex-prisoners have good employment history or marketable skills. Several aspects of the program provide the individuals with the awareness they need to lead a different lifestyle. These aspects include recovery meetings, job readiness, bible studies, marriage and parenting classes, as well as manhood training (Angiello, 27).
These aftercare programs are the reason that the recidivism rate for ex-offenders in the US has remained below fifteen percent. However, not all the inmates can access the services upon their release. Those who get the chance are impacted positively and can do the same to their families, society, and the world as a whole. Positively, there has been a recent increase in interest of aftercare, especially for the imprisoned young offenders. Several factors such as high rate of recidivism, overcrowding in correctional institutions, rising costs, futile outdated reintegration efforts have led to federal support for the establishment of inventive programs targeting ex-inmates. The increased interest in the past decades has resulted in the creation of the primary aftercare models (Altschuler & Armstrong, 72). The recent research on aftercare program models for released inmates has concentrated on the "intensive Aftercare Program" (IAP). Other top models include Youth Service Division (YSD), and Serious & Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI). These models focus on similar basics and service areas that aftercare programs should be founded on. Customized case management, risk evaluation, as well as a blend of surveillance of and treatments are the essential aspects of all the models. Similarly, the models seek to impact both long term and short term behavior patterns to increase public safety and reduce recidivism among the offenders. Through the customized care plans, the individual needs of the ex-inmate can be adequately met. According to Altschuler & Armstrong, aftercare can be successful if it meets the "what works" codes, including responsiveness, need, and risk (Altschuler & Armstrong, 73).
Over several years, numerous experimental all-inclusive aftercare programs have been developed. Assessment of these programs has given mixed outcomes because of poor program planning and implementation, but not defective conception. For instance, some programs were directed to persons who were a low reoffending risk. Others were practiced for only a short time, or the care concentrated on non-criminogenic features and lacked appropriate treatment elements. Experiences from these early programs have driven the advancement of an all-inclusive aftercare ideology. Presently, numerous auspicious programs blend intervention with community restriction to come up with an aftercare plan that prepares inmates for returning back into the society. However, these programs somewhat differ in approach, design, and origin, but they all have the same concept of "controlled changeover and follow up with surveillance and provision community amenities" (Angiello, 30)
IAP is an all-inclusive community-based inventiveness backed by OJIDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention). The IAP model aims at reducing reoffending among high-risk released inmates by adequately preparing them for reentry into the community. This model is founded on data-driven research that demonstrates that a highly controlled and supported changeover from incarceration to the community would assist the ex-offenders in domains such as employment, family relations, mental health, drug abuse, and reoffending without impacting the community negatively.
Another aftercare model by Altschuler and Armstrong incorporates the criminological concepts of social control, social learning, and strain to describe severe continuing criminal behavior. The researchers hypothesize that severe continuing criminal behavior is related to feeble checks brought about by social disorganization, insufficient socialization as well as strain. Additionally, stress, which can independently and directly affect criminal behavior, and is also brought about by social disorganization; as well as peer influences that is a social strength between offenders with feeble links and or pressure on one side and criminal habits on the other. Furthermore, they strongly claim that efficacy of aftercare needs intensive supervision and provision of service. They also support a highly controlled and steady changeover process that connects institutionalization and aftercare. Therefore, IAP model should be seen as a continuous correctional strategy entailing three different, but corresponding segments. These include pre-discharge and preparative planning during imprisonment, controlled changeover that needs the involvement of institutional and aftercare staff before and after community reentry. Additionally, it also entails continuing, re-integrative activities that ensures sufficient service provision as well as the basic level of social control.
A longitudinal study by James et al. found that improvements in scholastic involvement and pro-social behavior achieved by inmates in correctional institutions rapidly disappear after release (1160). The offenders turn back into their previous environments in which their felonious habits were developed and grew, and where dynamics that led to their criminal practices are present. The changeover from a "restricted and a much disciplined life in a controlled established environment to amorphous and often mystifying societal life" causes many to fall back into crime and back to prison (James et al., 1164). In particular, the first few months after discharge, the risk of reoffending is very high. Nevertheless, if they manage to stay out of trouble during this period, their chances of living a normal independent life and meeting their goals increase. Improved results concerning positive transition to the community and recidivism are attained if the changeover from correctional center to the community is supervised and directed. Research also shows that combining supervision and treatment reduces recidivism. Institutional incarceration does not satisfactorily prepare the offenders to the society, and skills learned in prisons are not designed for life outside the facility (James et al., 1179). Thus, an aftercare intervention is necessary to support prosperous community reintegration as well as reduce reoffending by inmates released from correctional facilities.
Another study that examined the impact of aftercare programs on reoffending in offenders discharged from prisons revealed that aftercare programs are most effective if they are implemented well. It also demonstrated that the care is more efficient with personal and not group therapy, and if aimed at high-risk offenders (James, 83). The duration of the care and the time of commencing the program were not linked in any way with the efficiency of the program, and the more intense the program, the lower the reoffending rate. In this particular study, recidivism or reoffending rate was measured by re-arrests and reconvictions established from official data.
The number of individuals imprisoned in the US rose steadily for close to thirty years. The population has been gradually declining since 2008, and as of 2012, there were over two million individuals locked up in prisons and jails across the nation. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), close to 600 thousand inmates have been discharged annually from prisons, and approximately five million of them are under different types of community-based supervision. At some point, nearly all the prisoners will return to their communities (James, 6). Aftercare programs encompass all the activities and indoctrination done to prepare inmates to return to their societies safely and to live as "straight" citizens. However, some released inmates finally end up back in prison. A recent study by BJS on reoffending showed that within five years upon discharge about three-quarters of ex-inmates released in 2006 brushed shoulders with CJS, and more than 50% went back to prison for new convictions or for breaking their release conditions (James, 7). As compared to the average US citizen, released inmates are less educated, unlikely to get employment, and more likely to abuse drugs, which are the proven risk factors for reoffending.
South Carolina has developed a comprehensive inmate reentry plan. It opened its first pre-release center in 1964, and many more centers have been opened since then. Approximately twenty-two thousand people are distributed across prisons in South Carolina, and about eleven thousands of them are discharged every year. However, only slightly over 17% of these people can participate in aftercare programs (Angiello, 27). Over the past decades, numerous efforts have been made to carry out pre-release programs in correctional centers. The division of human services was dissolved in 1995, and all programming efforts were declined. Although there are no standardized pre-release programs in the correctional system, various facilities have continued to offer different aspects of discharge preparation. More recently, the South Carolina Department of Corrections created a task force to assess all program requirements in the system and draw a full strategy to address the requirements. An assessment of released inmates who were within one month of discharge reported a dire need in job placement, alongside other needs. About a third of SC's correctional facilities offer employment counseling, parenting, drug abuse, and stress management classes. These institutions also provide support and advice on obtaining driver's license and checking social security cards.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Ex-convicts have difficulty in transitioning back into the community upon their release from correctional facilities. Most of the challenges faced include difficulty in finding a place to stay, reconnecting with families, and finding employment. In the absence of psychological, social, and material support, they become hopeless and wind up living with addicts and fellow ex-convicts, and with time they will plunge back into the behaviors that led to their imprisonment. These challenges of reintegration, as well the possibilities of re-offending can be ridden off by instituting and implementing aftercare programs for the released inmates. Over several years, numerous experimental all-inclusive aftercare programs have been developed. An effective aftercare program should be well planned, and more personalized. Aftercare programs are a possible remedy to prison congestion, health cost, as well as other expenses related to an inflated inmate population. Therefore, the County and the Federal governments should invest more on controlled and supervised offender reentry plans.
Work Cited
Altschuler, David M., and Troy L. Armstrong. "Juvenile corrections and continuity of care in a community context-the evidence and promising directions." Fed. Probation 66 (2002): 72.
Angiello, E. "Prerelease programs." Encyclopedia of prisons and correctional facilities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications (2005).
James, Chrissy, et al. "The effectiveness of aftercare for juvenile and young adult offenders." International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology 60.10 (2016): 1159-1184.
James, N. "Offender reentry: Correctional statistics, reintegration into the community, and recidivism. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Retrieved from ht tps." fas. org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34287. pdf (2015).
Nelson, Marta, and Jennifer Trone. "Why planning for release matters." (2016).
