For more than 152 years, the American Correctional Association has championed the cause of corrections and correctional effectiveness. Founded in 1870 as the National Prison Association, ACA is the oldest association developed specifically for practitioners in the correctional profession.
NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. We are dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of crime and justice issues through science. We provide objective and independent knowledge and tools to inform the decision-making of the criminal and juvenile justice communities to reduce crime and advance justice, particularly at the state and local levels.
The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is the only federal agency with a legislative mandate (Public Law 93-41 5) to provide specialized services to corrections from a national perspective. NIC is recognized by other federal agencies for its unique role and quality services. Its leadership is evidenced by the numerous partnerships and interagency agreements targeted to provide correctional services and training.
BJA strengthens the Nation’s criminal justice system and helps America’s state, local, and tribal jurisdictions reduce and prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and promote a fair and safe criminal justice system. BJA focuses its programmatic and policy efforts on providing a wide range of resources, including training and technical assistance, to law enforcement, courts, corrections, treatment, reentry, justice information sharing, and community-based partners to address chronic and emerging criminal justice challenges nationwide.
Nine million individuals are released from local jails each year, many struggling with mental illness, homelessness, and substance abuse. Jail reentry initiatives work to address these needs, thereby reducing both recidivism and criminal justice costs.The Elected Official’s Toolkit for Jail Reentry provides information and resources for local elected officials interested in launching or expanding a jail reentry initiative. The Toolkit includes an overview of jail reentry, first steps for developing a context-appropriate jail reentry initiative, essential facts and data to engage stakeholders, sample legislation, profiles of elected officials who have championed jail reentry, and a guide to additional resources.
Each year, US jails process an estimated 12 million admissions and releases. Substance addiction, job and housing instability, mental illness, and health problems are daily realities for a significant share of this population. Given that more than 80 percent of inmates are incarcerated for less than a month, jails have little time or capacity to address these deep-rooted and often overlapping issues. Life After Lockup synthesizes key findings from the Jail Reentry Roundtable and examines opportunities on the jail-to-community continuum where reentry-focused interventions can make a difference.
NIJ-supported research has shown that there is no one-size-fits-all model for successful reentry. However, NIJ-supported researchers have evaluated reentry programs with effective and ineffective attributes, and these studies have identified some efforts that could actually be counterproductive.
This online toolkit, created by National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA) and the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), outlines key components of successful reentry programming. Definitions and key practices associated with each component are provided. These components are: incorporate strategic planning; maintain financial stability; recruit, develop and retain staff; engage stakeholders; replicate private industry environment; provide certified technical skills training; maximize job opportunities for incarcerated individuals; and create a culture of employment readiness and retention for incarcerated individuals.
Individuals committed to jails have diverse risks and complex health and human service needs, and their length of incarceration in jail is brief when compared to prison. In addition, many inmates released from jails lack community connections to treatment and/or supervision organizations to address their reintegration issues.
The objective of this document is to detail a set of practices that correctional administrators can implement to remove barriers that inhibit children from cultivating or maintaining relationships with their incarcerated parents during and immediately after incarceration. This handbook contains ten chapters: partnership building; training and core competencies; intake and assessment; family notification and information provision; classes and groups; visitor lobbies; visiting; parent-child communication; caregiver support; family-focused reentry.