Getting Out—and Staying Out
Stephen Saltzburg. Photo by Ron Aira
More than 650,000 prisoners are released from state and federal prisons in the United States each year—about twice the entire prison populations of either India or Brazil.
Most former prisoners don’t stay out for long. Within three years of their release, nearly two-thirds are rearrested on criminal charges, and the cycle of conviction, incarceration and release starts all over again. Experts attribute this high rate of recidivism at least in part to a lack of effective transitional programs, both inside and outside the nation’s prison facilities.
But in a burst of bipartisanship, Congress is poised to pass legislation to give ex-prisoners a better chance of staying out of prison once they re-enter their communities.
The Second Chance Act (H.R. 1593 and S. 1060) would amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to reauthorize and expand state and local re-entry demonstration projects that provide family reunification, job training, education, housing, substance abuse treatment and mental health services to adult and juvenile offenders and their families. In addition, the U.S. attorney general would award grants to states to establish re-entry courts, create comprehensive and continuous offender re-entry task forces, provide pharmacological drug treatment services to incarcerated offenders, and offer technology-career training and mentoring.
Additional grants would fund a National Adult and Juvenile Offender Reentry Resource Center, drug treatment programs as an alternative to imprisonment, and demonstration programs to reduce the use of alcohol and other drugs by long-term substance abusers. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons would be directed to establish a prisoner re-entry program and a pilot program for the release of elderly nonviolent offenders.
Count the ABA among the bill’s supporters, says Stephen A. Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who co-chairs the ABA Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions with former Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson.
“If enacted, the Second Chance Act would be the most significant step the federal government has taken to reduce the recidivism rate among ex-offenders,” says Saltzburg, who also chairs the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section. The act “will not only save the taxpayers money by reducing expenditures on law enforcement and corrections, it also will reduce the other burdens on society imposed by our high rate of incarceration,” he adds.
HELP FOR FAMILIES, TOO
“By providing a second chance to criminal offenders, the legislation will also provide a second chance to their children and families,” says Saltzburg, who chaired a commission formed by the ABA to study prisons and sentencing.
At the association’s 2003 annual meeting, the ABA House of Delegates adopted standards for a legal framework designed to deal with collateral sanctions that often stay with convicted criminal defendants long after their time behind bars has ended. In 2004, the House urged jurisdictions to adopt programs and policies to prepare prisoners for release back into the community. And in February 2007, the House approved another series of recommendations dealing with sanctions against people with criminal records.
In addition to the ABA, more than 200 organizations and the Bush administration are urging passage of the Second Chance Act. The bill’s sponsors also reflect its bipartisan support. The lead sponsors in the House of Representatives are Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., and Chris Cannon, R-Utah, along with 92 co-sponsors. In the Senate, lead sponsors Joseph R. Biden, D-Del., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., are joined by 31 co-sponsors.
Rhonda McMillion is editor of Washington Letter, an ABA Governmental Affairs Office publication. This column is written by the ABA Governmental Affairs Office and discusses advocacy efforts by the ABA relating to issues being addressed by Congress and the executive branch of the federal government.
