Home for Good in Oregon Conference 2005

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Home for Good in Oregon Conference 2005

• Derek Beaudry
• Employment Specialist
• Human Solutions Inc

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The Sponsors of the Conference

• Home for Good (HGO) is a partnership of
  corrections, community and faith-based
  organizations, whose mission is to reduce
  recidivism through the development and
  implementation of successful reintegration
  programs for people who have been in the prison
  system.

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The Strategy of HGO

• Assisting offenders by preparing them to return
  to society through a combination of
  rehabilitative, spiritual, and transitional
  programs
• Building community, strengthening family
  connections, as well as healthy thinking and
  positive behaviors outside of prison
• Coordinating the collaboration between
  corrections, community and faith-based groups by
  way of statewide steering committee.

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Dr. Ed Latessa What Works?

• Risk Principle Target higher risk offenders.
• Need Principle Target criminogenic risk/need
  factors correlated with criminal conduct.
• Treatment Principle Use behavioral approaches.
• Fidelity Principle Implement program as
  designed.

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Risk Principle

• Target those offenders with higher probability of
  recidivism.
• Provide intensive treatment to higher risk
  offenders.
• Intensive treatment for lower risk offenders can
  increase recidivism

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Need Principle

• Antisocial/procriminal attitudes, values,
  beliefs, and emotional states.
• Procriminal associates and isolation from
  anticriminal others.
• Temperamental and personality factors conducive
  to criminal activity.
• A history of antisocial behavior.

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Need Principle Continued

• Family factors that include criminality and a
  variety of psychological problems in the family
  of origin.
• Low levels of personal educational, vocational or
  financial achievement.

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Criminogenic and Non-Criminogenic Factors

• Antisocial attitudes
• Antisocial friends
• Substance abuse
• Lack of empathy
• Impulsive behavior

• Anxiety
• Low self-esteem
• Creative abilities
• Medical needs
• Physical conditioning

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Treatment Principle

• The most effective interventions are behavioral
• Focus on current factors that influence behavior
• Action oriented
• Offender behavior is appropriately reinforced

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Effective Behavioral Models

• Structured social learning, where new skills and
  behavior are modeled.
• Cognitive behavioral approaches that target
  criminogenic risk factors.

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The Four Principles of Cognitive Intervention

• Thinking affects behavior.
• Antisocial, distorted, unproductive, irrational
  thinking causes antisocial and unproductive
  behavior.
• Thinking can be influenced.
• We can change how we feel and behave by changing
  what we think.

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Program Fidelity

• Quality assurance processes .
• Assess offenders in meeting target behaviors.
• Track offender recidivism.
• Have an evaluator working with the program.

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Overcoming Employment Barriers

• Over 600,000 people are being released from
  prison each year.
• The U.S. has the highest per capita prison rate
  in the world - 715 people in prison per 100,000.
• A total of 97 of inmates will eventually be
  released
• The first year is the period when much of the
  recidivism occurs.

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What We Need Input from Current and Former
Inmates

• I need to know how to live in the real word.
• I need clothes to get a job with.
• I need a place to stay until I get a job.
• I need to know how to get around.
• I dont know how to get a real job.
• We need mentorship programs.
• We need support systems other than family, and
  that are not drug or alcohol related.

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What Is Working

• Reach In programs
• GED programs
• Practical/Vocational training programs
• Halfway Housing
• Cognitive Intervention
• Intermediaries between ex-offender and employers

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Strategies for Job Developers

• Recruiting willing employers who can be persuaded
  to hire ex-offenders.
• Knowing which jobs have legal bars to people with
  criminal records and knowing what needs to be
  done to life those bars.
• Assisting with the expungement of records.

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More Strategies

• Introduce employers to financial incentives
  available to employers who hire ex-offenders
  (Work Opportunity Tax Credits, Federal Bonding
  Program, Workforce Investment Act subsidies).
• Individual needs assessments to address any
  particular issues.

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Children of Incarcerated Parents

• Prisoners with children Men 71.8 Women 79.8
• Number of children One child 28.1 Two
  children 33.3 Three children 10.2
• Number of times in jail 2-3 times 21.6 6-10
  times 21

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Incarcerated Parents Continued

• Parents and drugs and alcohol Ever used meth
  76.5 Ever received drug treatment 54 Alcohol
  treatment 50.
• Parents and generational criminogenics Father
  ever in jail 47.5 Father ever in prison
  25.3 Brother in jail 61.4 Brother in prison
  40.4

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The Children

• In the U.S. two million children have an
  incarcerated parent, an increase of 50 since
  1990.
• Approximately 10 million children have a parent
  who has been imprisoned or who is under
  supervision at some point in their lives.
• Oregon 20 thousand children in Oregon have a
  parent in prison.
• Over two-thirds of Oregons prisoners have
  children under 18 years of age.

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How Are Children Affected?

• Children have emotional problems 32.7.
• Behavioral problems 42.6
• Physical problems 10.2
• Long Term Impact Delayed development and
  attention disorders, inability to develop secure
  attachments, poor coping skills, future criminal
  behavior.

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Recommendations

• Upon Arrest
• Ask about children at point of arrest and verify
  safety plan.
• Officer awareness of impact of parental arrest on
  children.
• Training provided to Police officers to raise
  awareness of impact on children.

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Recommendations

• Judicial Proceedings
• Awareness of impact on children and other family
  members
• Familiarity with alternative sanctions.
• Requirement that child be allowed to visit parent
  in prison, when appropriate, specified in court
  order.

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Visitation

• Over half of the parents in prison expect to live
  with their children upon release, yet few receive
  visits.
• Most children lived with their parents prior to
  parental incarceration.
• There is no evidence that visitation, when
  appropriate is harmful to children, and, in fact,
  it has proven to reduce trauma associated with
  separation.

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Recommendations

• Jail
• Booking procedures that include questions about
  current location and circumstances of children
• Provide prisoners with access to parent education
  classes.
• Visits from children, when appropriate.

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Recommendations

• Reentry
• Adequate preparation for transition back into
  family and community.
• Systematic support for the children and parents
  through access to and coordination of appropriate
  services/programs in the community.

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Recommendations

• Education K-12
• Increase communication between incarcerated
  parents and teachers.
• In-service training for teachers.
• School-based support groups for children of
  incarcerated parents.