Flawed Approaches to Reentry

Providence, RI state senator Harold M. Metts recently introduced "Certificate of Good Conduct" legislation that would mark a step toward increasing employment and career opportunities for first-time, nonviolent, convicted persons in his state.  In the press release announcing the legislative proposal, Senator Metts spoke to the need for the measure:


"... individuals who have done wrong and who have paid for their mistakes should not be haunted for the rest of their lives by those errors. People need to be able to move on from the mistakes they’ve made and paid for, and we need to change our laws to allow them, and even encourage them, to do so.”


I commend the senator for his proposal, and for his forward-thinking comments.  Nonetheless, the limitation of eligibility for the proposed certificate to only non-violent, first-time, offenders leaves me dismayed.


The exclusion of violent offenders--even first-time offenders--from the conversation concerning thoughtful approaches to supportive reentry programming has become quite common.  More often than not, it seems, proposals to help convicted persons succeed in rebuilding their lives after a criminal conviction exclude persons convicted of violent offenses.  What this means is that fully a quarter of convicted persons are peremptorily dismissed from any effective consideration in the administration of reentry programs aimed at facilitating employment and career opportunities, so critical to the prevention of recidivism.  Add the more than 50% of convicted persons who have prior convictions, and that amounts to more than 75% of all convicted persons essentially left to their own devices, when it comes to the increasingly daunting task of taking care of themselves and their families post conviction, and post prison.


In what other public policy discussion do we so routinely reject 75% of the population in most critical need for assistance?


I submit that any approach at problem solving that doesn't aim to solve at least most of the problem is inadequate.  Reentry programs and proposals that do not take a big-picture approach to reentry, that focuses upon the difficulties encountered by most convicted persons, ultimately capitulate to the politics of exclusion that have made failure the rule in prisoner reentry for as long as anyone can remember.  Such narrow-minded approaches to reentry support do little more than waste more time and money, while the scourge of recidivism continues to eat away at the marrow of our community life.


Senator Metts said the right things, in his press release.  While I support the certificate concept at the heart of his proposal, the limitations on eligibility will severely limit the measure's effectiveness in reducing recidivism.