It takes more than a decade to implement re-entry reform, leaving inmates and communities with limited options Five key pillars — including positive social engagement, meaningful work trajectories — needed for successful return, researcher says

Carrie Pettus-Davis | Opinion contributor

Seventeen.

It’s the last age when mistakes usually remain childish indiscretions instead of becoming life-altering felonies.

Seventeen was the age at which my passion for working in criminal justice was ignited after watching a video in high school about the Stanford Prison Experiment, the famous study by Philip Zimbardo in which volunteers were divided into guards and inmates in a mock prison.

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Seventeen is also the number of years that it can typically take for research findings to change criminal justice policies that address the re-entry of individuals back to our communities.

We don’t have 17 years to wait.

About the same number of Americans have criminal records as have college degrees. And there are more than 48,000 public policies nationwide that limit the lives of millions of individuals with criminal convictions. These restrictions, sometimes known as “collateral consequences,” can affect everything from a person’s job prospects to access to educational loans and housing. Individuals with a drug offense may have their driver’s licenses suspended for decades, sometimes making it nearly impossible for them to hold a steady job.

Policies must change

Policy restrictions harm families and public safety by limiting the ability of people to be tax-paying, positive contributors to their communities and, in turn, increasing the likelihood they will return to crime and, subsequently, to incarceration.

Fortunately, states are recognizing how the extensive quilt of these policies holds back national progress.

Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida are among states in which lawmakers have passed reforms that address barriers to employment, increase access to food assistance, reinstate driver’s licenses, and provide further education for those returning to their families and communities.

Furthermore, both Louisiana and Texas offer certificates of rehabilitation, so that future employers can be more certain that when they hire people with felony convictions, they are hiring people who sincerely want a second chance and who are willing to prove themselves.

President Trump, widely viewed as tough on crime, issued a challenge to the country during his State of the Union Address “to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.”

As our country attempts to remove barriers to opportunity for formerly incarcerated individuals, we need to make sure that our choices are going to improve public safety and the well-being of our communities. But until now, the research informing policy and rehabilitation decisions has been far outpaced by best intentions and misguided reactionary decision-making.

Research can still be relevant to reform

Pairing research with policy reforms can close that gap.

Two years' worth of research that I conducted starting in 2015 revealed five key ingredients to successful re-entry that should be addressed on the first day of an individual’s incarceration: healthy thinking patterns, meaningful work trajectories, effective coping strategies, positive social engagement and positive interpersonal relationships.

If U.S. residents want to reverse the recidivism rate for the more than 10,000 people who are released to our communities each week, we need to adopt rehabilitation-driven public policy reforms and new re-entry practices.

My research partners and I worked with re-entry service providers and formerly incarcerated individuals across the U.S. to study what works to reduce recidivism. We also reviewed more than 100,000 studies on worldwide re-entry, recidivism and incarceration.

What we found drew a clear distinction between incarceration practices and re-entry services in U.S. prisons compared with those abroad. And it also went a long way toward explaining why recidivism rates, though hard to compare given differing methods for collecting data, are lower in other countries.

The German Prison Act, for example, requires that prison life be as similar to community living as possible in order to promote positive reintegration into communities after incarceration.

The Netherlands 1998 Penitentiary Principles Act requires that incarceration include as few restrictions as possible, and it encourages prisoners to maintain relationships with non-incarcerated community members and develop functional relationships with one another while in prison.

These European practices are in stark contrast to the United States, where it is common practice to confine individuals to lengthy stints in solitary confinement and to deny prison visits as sanctions or for cost savings. In America, incapacitation and retribution are central tenants of incarceration.

However, what happens during incarceration and immediately after incarceration are critical determinants of whether a person continues to commit crimes.

In Germany, about 33% of inmates are re-arrested within three years of release. Compare that with a nearly 70% recidivism rate over three years in the U.S.

U.S. prisons and re-entry systems have much to learn from countries where there are more social workers in prison than correctional officers, and where the systems are designed to have a driving focus on ensuring post-incarceration success.

We need to adopt rehabilitation-driven public policy reforms and new re-entry approaches that evidence suggests are truly rehabilitative. Our country doesn’t have 17 years to watch another generation of Americans struggle to find opportunity and fulfillment when they come out of prison.

Carrie Pettus-Davis leads a Florida State University re-entry research project, supported by a grant from the Charles Koch Foundation. The project will include studies in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Pennsylvania.