February 7, 2025
When as many as 75% of inmates in our prisons are illiterate, and 85% of juveniles who interface with juvenile courts are illiterate, perhaps it is time to take a look at how the inability to read impacts lives and increases the population of prisons here and across the nation.
July 22, 2024
Incarcerated people have few if any decisions to make about their daily life. They are told what to wear, and are given the food someone else has decided to provide. The days are ordered according to the facility's schedule, and visits are determined by the visitor, not the inmate. Eventually the ability to make decisions is impacted.
June 21, 2024
According to Indiana statistics, roughly 26,000 Indiana inmates have been reincarcerated, not for committing a new crime, but rather for a "technical parole violation"—such as missing an appointment or failing a drug test. Some of these violations act like a trip-wire that sends reentrants back behind bars for seemingly minor infractions, actions that neither serve the public or the reentrant.
January 22, 2024
When it comes to reentry, housing can be one of the most difficult needs to be met. Reentrants often leave the highly structured environment of prison or jail with no preparation or place to live, yet, study after study shows that unstable or nonexistent housing heightens the risk of being incarcerated again and about 10% become homeless on day one after release.
December 21, 2023
Locked away from friends and family, from parents, siblings and children, incarcerated people have little option but to try and make the best of an unbearable situation at Christmas. Read the bitter-sweet reason one woman hates to call home during the holidays.
June 21, 2023
A few years ago, I put together a recidivism map that showed re-incarceration rates in Indiana counties were between 30 and 50 percent, using source data from the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC). But after learning that IDOC only counts Indiana prison inmates who are re-incarcerated in an Indiana prison, it became obvious why the recidivism figures here were drastically lower than rates across the country.
May 22, 2023
When people compare the United States to just about any other country with a low incarceration rate it is usually far from a realistic comparison. While many first world countries have lower rates of incarceration, they also are much smaller and do not have the melting pot of cultures and values that we have in the U.S., cultures that have added beauty and depth to the fabric of our nation, but cultures whose differences can be expanded into battle lines of offense and defense...
May 8, 2023
Across the United States, approximately 1.22 million people are incarcerated in state and federal facilities. This does not include the 3000+ county jails in the U.S. that have begun to hold longer-term prisoners as well. About a half million reentrants are released every year. In Marion County, Indiana alone, annual estimated releases are about 12,000. If recidivism is the yardstick we use to measure our ability to help reentrants create a new future, it is an uncertain one.
December 21, 2022
For all those working with reentrants, or related to someone who is incarcerated, I end this year with my take on some of the important lessons I've learned about the pitfalls that sidetrack even the most success-oriented returnees. Here you go...
October 7, 2022
What is it to have a second chance? UNITE INDY's SecondChanceIndy.com web site gives men and women access to a new future—one that is a gateway to a financially secure life, that opens doors to having successful relationships, raising successful children, and becoming self-sufficient and independent.But second chances are only for those who are willing to do the work. There are a lot of ways to end up inside, but most incarcerated people are not 'lifers.'
