NCJ Number
210460
Date Published
May 2004
Length
132 pages
Annotation
This document contains the full-text papers commissioned for the Prisoner Reentry Roundtable concerning how community policing might respond to the challenges of prisoner reentry and public safety.
Abstract
The Urban Institute recently launched a major research and policy development initiative focused on the issue of prisoner reentry. The Reentry Roundtable was created to facilitate research and practice concerning prisoner reentry. The eighth meeting of the Roundtable was convened in May 2004 and focused specifically on the nexus between reentry and public safety. In an effort to facilitate discussion on this topic, the Roundtable commissioned four discussion papers exploring the role of community policing in easing prisoner reentry and protecting the public safety; this document presents these four discussion papers as well as a pilot study concerning public attitudes about prisoner reentry and public safety. The first paper explores the various ways in which communities reinforce the outcast persona of returning prisoners, thereby reducing the returning prisoners' chances of taking on a citizenship role. The second paper focuses on prisoner reentry initiatives developed in various States and discusses the role of police officers in reentry programs. The third paper outlines a problem-oriented approach to prisoner reentry that defines recidivism risk as a complex interaction between an offender's individual propensities to reoffend and the environment in which the offender spends time following release. The fourth paper explores contextual data regarding how former prisoners perceive their role in society and their almost unending association with progressive policing and the last paper presents preliminary data on how citizens perceive prisoner reentry and their potential support for reentry programming. Footnotes, figures, references