VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Attorney General Mark R. Herring announced on Tuesday the launch of Virginia’s first ever online re-entry portal, which provides a “one-stop shop” for people involved in every phase of helping Virginians re-enter communities after incarceration.

“There are so many barriers to successful re-entry,” Herring said. “There is housing, transportation, employment and treatment.”

Herring says this new program will help inmates locked up in local jails return to society. The online program has information for inmates, their families, sheriff’s deputies and jail employees and for potential employers.

“All too often if they are just released back into the community without that type individualized case support and without those networks of support they are very likely to re-offend,” Herring added.

Herring says there is a similar program for the state’s prison system and they’ve seen results. This is the first time a U.S. attorney general’s office has created a program targeted on the local level.

“It affords them the opportunity to make the most of the second chance that they are being given,” Herring said.

Herring tells 10 On Your Side, if the program is successful it will help create safer communities and ultimately save tax payer dollars. He believes without it inmates will end back where they started.

“That doesn’t help anybody,” Herring added. “It doesn’t help them, it doesn’t help their family and it doesn’t help the community.”

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