NCJ Number
222041
Date Published
May 2008
Length
178 pages
Annotation
This "Toolkit" for practitioners interested in improving the community reentry of those released from jail offers new ideas spawned by the U.S. Justice Department's Jail Reentry Roundtable, which brought together jail administrators, corrections and law enforcement professionals, county and community leaders, and service providers to discuss the role of jails in the reentry process.
Abstract
Section 1, "Getting Started," addresses the importance of the jail administrator in the reentry process. Among the issues discussed are finding the time and money for reentry and having a leader who can facilitate communication, collaboration, and coordination across agencies. Section 2, "Jail Staff Issues," focuses on motivating jail staff to support and participate in inmate reentry into the community. Section 3, "Assessment Screens," presents quick and easy-to-use screening tools for evaluating inmate needs. Section 4, "Reentry Strategies," discusses the principles and provides examples of various reentry strategies based on inmate need, length of stay in jail, and a jail's infrastructure. Section 5, "Identifying Community Resources," explains the process and tools a jail can use to identify the service providers who can work with jail inmates before and after release. Section 6, "Coordinating Stakeholders and Educating the Public," discusses collaboration with government and community agencies in designing and implementing reentry strategies. Section 7, "Requirements and Standards," describes the roles of courts, local municipalities, States, and professional associations in making reentry strategies effective. Section 8, "Measuring Success," discusses the importance of and ways of measuring whether or not specific reentry strategies are having their intended effects. Section 9 summarizes the "Toolkit" concepts and presents a vision of reentry collaboration as a featured component of jail administration. Exhibits of forms and Section references