by Cynthia Price
Legal News
The Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative (MPRI) has been so successful that Michigan Department of Corrections Director Patricia Caruso no longer calls it an initiative.
Denise Allsberry, Grand Rapids Area Manager for the Field Operations Administration of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), says Caruso has now directed that planning for a prisoner’s eventual return to the community will start from the first day he or she arrives at the prison.
MPRI’s vision is that “every prisoner released from prison will have the tools needed to succeed in the community,” but it cannot be overemphasized that the main goals and mission of MPRI involve the safety of the community, as evidenced by a reduction in crime — in turn evidenced by a reduced recidivism rate.
Comparing recidivism rates is tricky, and statistical analysis must take into account a number of factors. Parolees in the MPRI program were put into cohorts and an expected recidivism rate based on 1998 rates. The 2008 report on MPRI indicated that all cohorts had reduced recidivism, but some more than others. But the report concludes: “When controlling for a history of prior parole failure and time at risk, the overall MPRI/IRU recidivism outcomes through August of 2008 continue to show a 26% relative rate reduction in total returns to prison... This translates into an absolute rate reduction of 945 fewer returns to prison so far when compared to baseline expectations.”
The Jan. 2010 MPRI e-news, produced by Public Policy Associates, updates that information through 2009. MPRI releases numbered 19,105 and the expected number of returns to prison would be 6,491, but the actual number of returns was 4,408 for a reduction of 2,083. To subscribe to that e-newsletter, visit http://www.michpri.com/index.php?page=mpri-news and scroll to the bottom, clicking under a story dated 2/18/2008.
But as Yvonne Jackson, MPRI Community Coordinator for Kent and Allegan counties, knows, it is the stories of successful individuals which touch the heart.
She tells of a man in his fifties, incarcerated for over 30 years, who was overwhelmed by receiving his first drivers’s license. He used the license to drive to a meeting at the juvenile detention center to make the juveniles aware of the consequences of criminal actions. He and other ex-offender presenters, she said, were “passionate about not wanting to see [the juvenile offenders] follow in their footsteps.”
Jackson says she has seen a number of “returning citizens” whose lives have been turned around by MPRI’s collaborative, community-based approach. She says that prisoners who had “a made-up mind about life on the outside” were transformed through demonstration of people’s caring and concern about their success.
Jackson’s actual employer is ACSET (Area Community Service Employment and Training Council), a community partner contracting with the MDOC. The administrative agency for each MPRI site (Jackson is housed in the Kent County Parole office) then further contracts with local providers to cover the services determined to be needed for returning citizens.
These services include: housing supports, cognitive workshops, mental health outpatient care, employment assistance, transportation (helping them to get places without purchasing vehicles outright), family life adjustment supports, work supplies including how to dress appropriately, obtaining identification and vital statistics documents, and civil legal services.
Legal Aid of West Michigan is the lead agency helping the returning offenders with such legal services, and Miriam Aukerman takes the lead there. She says the main cases she sees are child support and how to handle arrearages, getting a driver’s license, family law questions, and occasionally more unusual assistance, such as housing or employment conflicts.
Though the principle thing Legal Aid does is client services, Aukerman and other Legal Aid personnel also work with the state to address legal barriers to the success of re-entering prisoners. There is a roundtable of community groups involved with re-entry issues on which Legal Aid serves. Occasionally the parole and probation agents also refer individuals with legal problems to Legal Aid.
Aukerman says about MPRI, “It’s really smart on crime. What it does is recognize that people need support coming out of prison, need help reintegrating with their family, to reduce the chances that they’ll go back. It’s a very smart investment in terms of the safety of our communities and making sure that people have the best chance of succeeding.”
For their parts, Jackson and Allsberry say they wish there were lots more like Miriam Aukerman.
Re-entry programs focus first on an assessment of the prisoner’s strengths and needs while he or she is still incarcerated; then, after parole has been granted or release time nears, on creation of a Transition Accountability Plan with the prisoner’s input; and then on providing services to help the prisoner make that plan successful.
Helping returning citizens find employment is probably the top objective of the local MPRI program. Jackson says that even when the MPRI pilot projects started in 2006, job placement was easier here.
MPRI works both in locating specific training opportunities and in education about work-readiness.The program does not specifically support any associates or bachelors degree program, preferring vocational training which is more likely to result in quick employment, but will help with assistance in applying for Pell grants or scholarships, for example.
Most returning citizens are referred to Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC) classes, and a few have been able to meet the eligibility of the Workforce Investment Act to get certified, which increases likelihood of getting hired.
The Kent/Allegan MPRI also has a strong focus on mentoring. Although in some other counties mentoring is primarily faith-based, Jackson says that the agency contracted to help with mentoring leaves that decision up to the parolee. Jackson had just returned from a meeting with that agency, and was impressed at the broad range of topic areas and evidence-based success strategies covered by the agency’s education effort: from how to get a “fresh-start” mentality, to etting goals to employability skills.
There has been an increased emphasis, now reflected in MDOC’s commitment to start re-entry processes as soon as a prisoner arrives, on providing continuity between services while the person is incarcerated and those given him or her on the outside. Police officers may go in to the prisons, for example through the Brother to Brother program. Often these officers go as far as giving incarcerated individuals their phone numbers, which some returning citizens have taken advantage of.
An interesting related change over the years has been a great increase in the numbers of parole agents statewide. Allsberry reports that in 1990 there were five in the Grand Rapids Area Field Operations offices; now there are 31 full-time and two part-time.
The change in emphasis that increase represents seems to be working to the benefit of Kent County and the state. MPRI’s unique collaborative, multi-pronged approach, along with other community re-entry programs, has meant that the number of incarcerated people in Michigan has decreased from about 51,000 in 2005 to about 44,900 currently.
Detailed information on the Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative is found on-line at
www.michpri.com.
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