A shift to easing life after prison

With 2 million people behind bars and tight budgets making it impossible to keep building prisons, "more and more communities are realizing it's in their best interest to shepherd this transition so that communities can be safe," says Peggy Burke, a principal at the Center for Effective Public Policy, a Maryland think tank.

At play as well is a gradual realization, experts say, that community-based organizations, not prisons, have the best chance of rehabilitating prisoners. "There has been recognition that prison time alone doesn't help people change behavior in the long run," says Alex Holsinger, an associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

This recognition isn't new, but notions of rehabilitation and assisting reentry fell out of favor in the 1980s when cries for mandatory minimum sentences and tougher punishment funneled funds toward incarceration. Ms. Solomon says that some of the renewed Republican interest in reentry has occurred because it enables faith-based groups, many of which already work with the prison population, to come forward.

Even today, not all lawmakers or researchers favor spending on reentry, and there's still plenty of "tough on crime" sentiment. Some also feel that while the reentry movement is a nice ideal, it is less effective in reality.

James Austin, president of the JFA Institute in Washington, a research center on justice and corrections, says that current programs don't serve enough people, that corrections should rely more on community services, and that there is little data to measure whether the programs are working. "There's been a lot of talk," he says, "but it still needs to be implemented properly."

Indeed, most programs are still limited in scope. That's one reason that Frederica Williams, executive director of the Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury, a Boston neighborhood, started a voluntary post-prison release collaborative for outgoing inmates in 2003. "There was a huge gap once they were released back to the community," she says. "They went back to the life that they knew."

Solomon says that the holistic approach in Massachusetts could help fill that gap and even become a national model. "If it is implemented as it is envisioned, it would put Massachusetts at the forefront," she says. "A lot of states are innovating on the margins."

The idea has garnered local support. While Mr. Festa hopes to see a more comprehensive approach, he believes the reentry proposal is an important first step.

Meanwhile, the police superintendent in Lowell, Mass., who established a voluntary reentry program some five years ago, says the new legislation will bolster a program that, even in limited form, has succeeded. "We've done the best we can under the current law and with no funding," says Edward Davis, superintendent of the Lowell Police Department. "The steps [the Romney administration] have taken would remove that roadblock."

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