Prison Re-Entry $$ Falls Through

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by Melinda Tuhus | Oct 5, 2009 4:59 pm

(5) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: City Hall

The state did not win a $750,000 federal grant that would have been targeted to New Haven’s prison re-entry efforts.

The city was looking forward to getting the help through a federal Second Chance Reentry Award that the state Department of Corrections applied for on behalf of New Haven. The U.S. Department of Justice just awarded 15 grants in 13 states.

City officials found out late last week that New Haven was not among the recipients.

The hefty grant would have provided support for people returning to New Haven from prison, including housing, job training, and placement in jobs, according to Christine Fortunato, grants manager for the state Department of Corrections.

Prison re-entry has become a policy focus for Mayor John DeStefano. About 25 people return to New Haven from prison each week. Without help readjusting to life on the outside, they often end up back on the streets, getting into more trouble with the law.

The city’s application came as it increasingly shifts to grants and private fundraising to pay for social services: Click here to read more about that.

The city’s new prison reentry coordinator, Amy Meek (pictured), said the city would continue to pursue the concept.

“The original goal of the application was to have the DOC be really involved in making sure people returning to New Haven’s neighborhoods have a smooth transition from prison to the outside,” she said. “That’s still obviously a goal of the community empowerment program and we are working with them [DOC officials] for the re-application. To the extent that we worked with them we built really strong relationships.”

“It’s always nice to have more money, but hopefully we can do what we can with what we’ve got,” she said. “The fact that people are still thinking about how to make sure we don’t have this gap in services, I think these are all lessons we’re continuing to keep in mind.”

Meek said the DOC is planning to apply for the grant again when the next request for proposals is issued in December or January.

But Fortunato was much more circumspect about future efforts. “Because the announcement just came out yesterday, there’s been no opportunity to talk with staff here at the department about next steps.” She said until a new RFP [Request for Proposals] is issued, she won’t know if the parameters will have changed. “We need to take a look at the proposal we submitted and talk to key staff,” before making any decisions, she said.

Meek took over a month ago from Deborah Marcuse, who wrote a successful $350,000 grant application to the federal Department of Justice to fund her position for two years. The grant also includes money to hire a full-time community organizer for one year, which Meek said she hopes to fill soon.

The grant aims “to create a community empowerment program for the re-entry population,” according to Meek.

She said the organizer will help community organizations set up programs in four areas: substance abuse, education, families, and peer mentoring. The grant will provide $9,500 in each area, part of which would be devoted to providing technical assistance so groups could apply for other funds. Meek said that most likely one organization working in each area would get the money, but added, “We’re still in the process of working out the logistics.”

One group that will help guide where the money goes is the Re-entry Roundtable, which attracts dozens of representatives of city and state government, as well as social service providers and concerned community members to its monthly meetings.

“Part of what the Roundtable is doing is setting up focus groups of ex-offenders or others [like offenders’ family members] who have come in contact with the criminal justice system in some way to see how money and other resources could be best used,” said Meek.

Comments

posted by: Shafiq Abdussabur on October 5, 2009 11:52pm

This is a situation where, we the “New Haven Community” are on our own. prison Re-Entry not a priority for the State. There are only three cities that are significantly affected by this dilemma: New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport.
Here are some facts we need not ignore:
*Children with parents in prison. 6 out of 25 Black children compared to 1 out of 25 White Children, have a father incarcerated.
*Among high school drop outs, 50% had fathers who were incarcerated.
*Yale Lecture: FOCUS on New Haven politics panel. 3%(4,500) of New Haven’s Population is in the criminal court system.
*$65,000 to incarcerate 1 youth at Mason Youth. Could allow for 130 youth at $500 each to attend Boys & Girls Club for 1 whole year.
*$100,000 to Incarcerate 1 male in Northern Correctional. Cost set up 4 men each with $25,000 jobs for one year with full medical benefits.
*#1 reason for high incarceration rates of minorities: Race and Status. Poor people have less money to fight the system.
*Among 5 yr olds, 49% who had fathers in jail showed aggressive behaviors with in 30 day. New York Times..
*Among black dropouts in their late 20’s, more are in prison on a given day � 34 percent � than are working � 30 percent. (2000 census data).

source: http://twitter.com/boldminds

posted by: Fedupwithliberals on October 6, 2009 6:55am

SHAFIQ

Many of your listed facts have nothing to do with prison re-entry. Those statistics tell us about the population who are in prison in the first place along with the social fallout. Most of the ills of the black community originated with big government involvement which destroyed the family unit to begin with. No amount of government intervention can correct that. Has to come from within.

posted by: More Than Common Folk on October 6, 2009 1:56pm

FEDUPWITHLIBERALS: Somethings just can’t come from nothing. Half of the peoples ills are due a lack of interest in the issues they face by decision makers. Policies are there to make these things happen they can be changed to correct the mistakes on both the people and disconnected elected officials who justify the policies the affect people. The falling through of the money shows almost an intentional disregard for issues that contribute to social destablization. Invest in prisons and laws to incarcerate people, make the genocidal project air tight our city and country need to wake up! its not just people doing it to themselves its the governing body that justifies the suffering of the american people thats why a billion can get approved for a bank or corporation and used in a month. It takes years to get money for communities rotting from the inside out.

posted by: Fedupwithliberals on October 6, 2009 5:39pm

More Than Common Folk

“Half of the peoples ills are due a lack of interest in the issues they face by decision makers”

If you continue to look to government to save you and solve your problems, then you will be very disappointed in the outcome. Time to take care of yourself. Called bootstraps. Will make you happier and more self sufficient in he long run as well as boost self esteem. If you don’t believe me, look at what generations of dependency did to those poor Katrina victims.

posted by: lance on October 8, 2009 5:39am

i see the race card is alive and well.

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