NCJ Number
207453
Date Published
December 2001
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the need for integration of services for offenders reentering the community.
Abstract
Single agencies are unlikely to have the human or fiscal resources to fully address the diverse needs of offenders and their families. There is a growing recognition that integration of services across institutional lines may be beneficial not only in addressing the varying needs of offenders and their families who require health and human services, but also in making more efficient use of limited agency resources. The major objectives of services integration include: identifying gaps in service delivery and assigning organizational responsibility for implementing needed services; reducing barriers to obtaining services; and conserving institutional resources by sharing some efforts across systems or by reducing unnecessary duplication of efforts. Historically, corrections systems have focused their efforts only on offenders during the period of their incarceration, ignoring the need for connections to community-based criminal justice entities, as well as health and human service systems. Increasingly though, these systems have exhibited an interest in developing partnerships with other institutional stakeholders, such as State health departments and community-based service providers; however, barriers to coordinated care exist at both the level of individual clients and at institutional/service system and staff levels. In addition, barriers to services integration exist at the local level. These barriers include a changing landscape of service providers, insufficient resources to address the full needs of clients; and an ineffective network of information sharing. The article discusses several promising models that have been developed to overcome services fragmentation. References