By Nicole Maharaj
January 31, 2005

The Mayors Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives held a task force meeting on Tuesday, January 18 on the following topic: "Successful Reentry: How Will We Know It When We See It? The paneled discussion focused specifically on the cities role in reintegrating returning offenders. Congressman Danny K. Davis (IL) also gave a congressional update on his bi-partisan bill with Congressman Rob Portman (OH) — the Second Chance Act - introduced in Congress last year. This bill and a Senate counterpart co'sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback (KS) and Senator Joseph Biden (DE) are currently being re-drafted for re-introduction in early February. Primary focus areas of the bill include: comprehensive planning and coordination of reentry both before and after release, and provision of jobs, housing, mental health and substance abuse treatment for returning offenders.

As Chair of the Task Force, Street indicated the group would increase its lobbying efforts and mayoral support for passage of the Second Chance reentry legislation, including mayoral visits to the hill and letters of support working by continuing to work in collaboration with a broad reentry working group here in Washington (DC). Street also indicated the task force would develop a core set of recommendations on how cities should effectively deal with reentry with specific suggestions on how to best engage faith and community based partnerships. This task force report of recommendations will be presented to the conference body during the Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Other panelists during the session included David Eisner, CEO for the Corporation for National Service, Julio Medina, Director of Exodus Transitional Housing, Christopher Fay, Replication Director for the Delancey Street Project, Alfonso Lenhart, President and CEO of the National Crime Prevention Council and Patrick Purtill, Director for the Department of Justice, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Dennis Maloney, Project Leader for the Civic Justice Corps who holds over 30 years of experience in the criminal justice arena helped in facilitating the discussion.

The magnitude of the criminal justice problem is numbing with 2 million people in jail; another 7 million on probation and parole; 650,000 people coming back annually to communities from prison, and thousands more reentering each year from jails. How can mayors and other local officials begin to have a discussion with local residents about effective responses in dealing with this problem. This is exactly what mayors, congressional and federal agency officials, foundation staff and faith and community service providers jointly discussed during the task force meeting convened and led by Street. The group was challenged to describe the immediate concerns and hopes of the crime victims, family members, local church goers and potential employers of a hypothetical incarcerated person due to be released to their neighborhood. Personalizing the problem caused the participants to engage in a much more practical discussion.

Various elected official, faith and community based, and family perspectives were offered during the discussion. For example, questions included the following:

• I want to know that a person coming home made every effort to pay their victim back and make amends to the highest degree possible.
• I want to know that the person overcame their addiction and certainly wasn't able to continue their drug abuse in prison.
• I want to know that the person was offered a faith experience in prison.
• I want to know where we can go to get counseling and advice on how to make the reentry experience successful and safe.

The interactive discussion brought the problem home to a real level.