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Release and Re-Entry
Programs

The federal government, along with most states and
many counties and communities, promote different types of
re-entry programs in their prisons and jails as well as within
communities, churches, and nonprofit organizations. Most of these pro-
grams focus on finding and keeping jobs, with many closely tied to lo-
cal workforce development programs. Others are more concerned with
religious and spiritual transformation while, at the same time, dealing
with such critical re-entry issues as housing, addiction, anger manage-
ment, and mental health.

To varying degrees, all of these state- and nonprofit-run programs are
concerned with strengthening public safety, transforming lives, reducing
recidivism, and empowering low-income groups. They also share one oth-
er commonality – they work with one of the most challenging groups of
individuals who are in desperate need of help. Indeed, many seasoned pro-
fessionals would rather work with more highly skilled, educated, and en-
trepreneurial groups that have few red flags in their backgrounds and who
are more responsive to evidence-based approaches to behavioral change.

In fact, it’s not unusual for local government workforce development
programs to assign re-entering ex-offenders, who may constitute 20
percent of their clientele, to the most recently hired and inexperienced
professionals. Anticipating difficulties in showing effectiveness in
working with such groups, they face a very challenging situation. Other
groups, especially nonprofits such as Delancey Street Foundation, have
for decades taken on the struggle of transforming the lives of America’s
most difficult population through social entrepreneurship, education,
and rehabilitation with some remarkable successes.

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