 Reintegrate Offenders Back Into Communities Two Alaska Agencies To Receive Almost $2 Million July 16, 2002
A total of 68 grants will be awarded to support efforts to ensure public safety and reduce victimization by helping returning offenders become productive members of their communities, providing education, job and life skills training, and substance abuse treatment, while carefully monitoring their activities after release. Among the list of grantees are the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and the Alaska Department of Corrections. According to the news release, the AK Dept. of Health & Social Services will receive a grant in the amount of $593,000 and the Alaska Department of Corrections will receive a grant in the amount of $1,407,000. The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative is an unprecedented collaboration among the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor and Veterans Affairs. "This initiative helps provide individuals who have been released from prison the opportunity to become productive citizens and members of society," said Ashcroft. "The reentry programs aid in making sure these individuals will not return to a life of crime." An estimated 630,000 offenders were released from prison last year, with an estimated 160,000 of those being violent offenders. The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative will build on innovative reentry efforts in states for both juveniles and adults with the goal that these efforts serve as nationwide prototypes. Communities will utilize existing federal, state and local resources, while grant funds will be used to address additional specific needs. Local efforts will require close coordination among institutional and community corrections, law enforcement, education, job training and placement, and other service providers, including faith- and community-based organizations. Reentry efforts will begin while offenders are still in correctional facilities, continue through offenders' transition back into the community and help sustain ex-offenders through services such as employment training and substance abuse and mental health treatment. Efforts will be tailored to any one, or combination of, the following age groups: Youth (ages 14-17); Young Adult (ages 18-24) and Adult (ages 25-plus). These efforts require close coordination among institutional corrections, law enforcement, community corrections and other community-based service providers. The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative is designed to address three stages an offender goes through when returning to the community. The process involves education, parenting instruction, vocational training, treatment and life skills programs while offenders are in institutions, services and supervision as they reenter the community and networks of agencies and individuals to support offenders as they become productive and law-abiding members of their communities. The federal partners joined together to help state and local agencies navigate the complex field of existing grant programs and to assist them in accessing, redeploying, and leveraging those resources to support all components of a comprehensive reentry program. The federal partners will fund a national evaluation of the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative to look at the long-term effectiveness of the program. A complete list of grantees is available on the Office of Justice Programs' web site. More information about the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative and other OJP programs is also available on OJP's Web site.
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