Voices: Facilitating successful reentry into community

More than 600,000 people—roughly the population of El Paso—are released from incarceration in the United States every year. Each one enters a community that can facilitate or hinder the reentry process.

Jesus made clear his followers are to care for those society deems the “least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46). How will we, as Christians, help the formerly incarcerated address and overcome challenges, barriers and stigmas toward successful reentry?

Here, at the end of National Second Chance Month, let’s consider how the Christian community effectively can meet the goal of facilitating successful reentry through relationships and diverse skillsets.

Relationships

To provide avenues for successful reentry, communities need to be involved actively in establishing close relationships with those returning to them. In the absence of such proximity and understanding the daily experiences of formerly incarcerated individuals, communities may be contributing to their actual or anticipated sense of stigmatization.

To gain insight into the local impact of incarceration and to begin establishing relationships, communities should consider creating opportunities to discuss issues of incarceration, justice, rehabilitation and reentry.

By listening to and collaborating with the 726,000 people in Texas’ correctional population, attorneys, law enforcement agencies and nonprofits engaging in criminal justice pursuits, communities will develop a greater awareness of the issues interfering with successful reentry. This listening and collaboration will position communities better to utilize their resources for effective advocacy.

Diverse skillsets

Paul wrote: “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them” (Romans 12:4-6).

The complexity of reentry requires deliberate, interdisciplinary solutions. Advocacy should stem from one’s own area of expertise, with the goal of addressing multiform barriers to reentry.

Just how complex is the reentry process? Formerly incarcerated individuals may be subjected to thousands of barriers to reentry—what are known as collateral consequences. Counteracting these collateral consequences is the ultimate goal of community advocacy and should inform members of the community in what ways their skillsets can be utilized best.

For instance, professionals working in state or local housing authorities are uniquely positioned to address housing-related collateral consequences by working to expand access to quality and affordable housing during the reentry process.

Similarly, business owners or those responsible for the hiring of new employees are in positions to address directly employment-related collateral consequences by reimagining their hiring practices to include formerly incarcerated individuals.

Nonprofits also can resource community members working to facilitate successful reentry of formerly incarcerated individuals. One organization doing this is the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, a pre- and post-release program bridging the relational gap between currently incarcerated adult males and business executives in the community through mentorship, volunteering and teaching.

When it comes to facilitating the successful reentry of formerly incarcerated individuals into our communities, it will take a whole-of-society approach utilizing individual talents, privileges and abilities to minimize the presence and impact of the collateral consequences of incarceration.

Let the community you live in be a beacon of hope for the 600,000 people being released from incarceration each year in the United States. Lean into collaboration and seek opportunities to learn from those Jesus calls us to serve.

And remember, an effective method of advocacy for formerly incarcerated individuals is based in relationships and utilizing the strengths and gifts of all of us to provide an interdisciplinary community-based approach to successful reentry.

Marcus Franklin is a project specialist for the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty’s Criminal Justice Initiatives and a graduate of Baylor University.