Essay Example: Critical Review of Boston Reentry Initiative

Increased rates of crime

Increased rates of crime have a ripple effect on the number of offenders incarcerated in local jails. This increased rate of arrests and detention in prisons commonly occur in virtually every community that offers an immediate response to criminals. The majority of the offenses committed by these criminals attract a prison term of less than a year after which they are released and rejoin the community. In some cases, the correctional and rehabilitative measures used in the prisons are only relevant within the confines of such environments. The reality implies that when the inmates rejoin the community that lacks such restrictions, they experience dramatic confusion

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The United States administration realized the importance of increasing safety among the communities with scores of returnees. In the process, $100 million was invested by the government in prisoner reentry programs to support transition housing, community support, and jobs for the returnees to find their feet and develop their affairs without causing trouble. The various reentry programs that are responsible for assisting adults in transition from crime life and into the society are not doing enough. The failure occurs despite the considerable funding as well as the interagency support that they receive.

The article tControlling Violent Offenders Released To The Communityt explores the Boston Reentry Initiative (BRI) and its application to social service, mentorship, and vocational rehabilitation programs to transform offenders released to the local Boston community. Policy advocates and analysts supported that the agencies should work with the community organization and families, as this provide a tconcentric circle of supportt for the returnees. The semi-experimental and survival analyses shade light on the habitual relapse into crime by released inmates. The result showed a positive effect or performance reducing convulsive arrest-failure rate by 30%. Furthermore, the crime rate was reduced substantially resulting in longer periods between releases and re-arrest of the offenders (Braga, Piehl, & Hureau, 2009)

The BRI program targeted young adults between 18 and 37 years since their development into in crime may escalate. The analysis and evaluation of their backgrounds are done to dig any involvement in the offense, gang violence, breaking the firearm law or any association with crime gangs. Just slightly above the entry month into the BRI program, the participants go through the rules of the house as well as the resources available at their disposal during the time they would stay. Representatives from criminal justice agencies, social service providers, and faith organizations make up the panel during BRI sessions, giving speeches and providing their inputs and responsibilities on behalf of the bodies, they are representing (Braga, Piehl, & Hureau, 2009). Those who represent the prosecution, probation, and parole sections in the sessions spell the consequences shall they be caught recommitting crimes. The emphasis lies on the fact that any offender in that course has the power to change their destinies in their hands.

Rehabilitative programs

The next phase immediately gets busy, as the inmates are assigned jail staff caseworkers and faith-based mentors from the community. They are then enrolled in various rehabilitative programs such as education, drug-abuse control sessions among others and the activities are trimmed to fit the individual participantts needs. When time is served purposefully, and the release date comes by, someone from the offenderts family or mentor in cases where there are no family members is assigned the responsibility of meeting with the about-to-be-released criminals. This follows encouragements to the criminals to use the skills they learned during their time in the programs to fit into the society and build their affairs and be better people. (Braga, Piehl, & Hureau, 2009).

The positive results from the quasi-experimental and survival analyses confirmed the effectiveness of the BRI. The effects were far much an improvement as far as the life of the returnees in the post-release period is concerned. Just to sample, only 36.1 percent of BRI participants have faced arrests for new crimes as compared to 51.1 percent of those who participated in the control group for this comparative study.

National safety is a priority for every state. A government that puts a lot of effort, time and investment into the security affairs of its citizens instills a sense of pride, and in the process, other attached needs are met. This research to an extent achieves its purpose, which was to enhance safety in the community by controlling the recidivism of the released high-risk violent members back to the society from rehabilitation and correction centers and programs like the BRI. This is evident from the results showing positive feedback.

Records of criminal history have helped unveil long wanted criminals who got away. Criminal Offenders Record Information (CORI) of Massachusetts only focused on the residents, meaning non-residents offenders or arrests made locally with federal court prosecution would not be captured. The important thing is that the group of the criminals targeted by this research pinpointed the most vulnerable to crime activities.

The nonrandomized semi-experimental approach

There are various ways of measuring recidivism. Therefore, the nonrandomized semi-experimental approach used was not the best to get accurate data on this issue. This is because measures like a return to prison for community supervision technical violations are affected by policy choices coming from court corridors, systems of sentencing and community supervision enforcement. The trend leaves only arrest for new crimes as the most accurate measure of recidivism.

The use of inmates for state experiments is a violation of human dignity. While involving family members in the rehabilitation is a real concept in maintaining family ties and contacts for the inmates, some of those family members might be in some ways responsible for what the prisoners went through before going to prison. The possibility means that having any contacts with them in any way might bring a violent reaction from the ones on the inside.

Cox regression models used in this research paper showed empirical variables which, revealed that the high-risk offenders do not change much when released back into the community; that the members experience a high risk of habitual relapse into crime. This concurs with what Huebner et al. 2007 suggest that the increased number of cases unveiled by an emerging body of studies supports this assumption.

In conclusion, took a statistical and critical evaluation of the reentry programs for deliquescent offenders. The issues discussed here included the effects of the Boston Reentry Initiative (BRI), which is a supportive social program for criminals. Also contained herein were the results and discussions of findings that focus on a comparison of criminal behavior before and after the detention of the offenders. The gang membership remains a significant challenge for the researchers since those who leave prison easily become criminals after release from incarceration. The BRI members are termed criminal group members by the risks of aggressive involvement in illegal activities. Overall, the positive feedback substantiated by the reduced criminal cases by the BRI is a clue to what good can come from rehabilitative, individualized reentry sessions with support from social service, representatives from Criminal Justice as well as faith-based organizations.

Reference

Braga, A. A., Piehl, A. M., & Hureau, D. (2009). Controlling Violent Offenders Released To The Community: An Evaluation of the Boston Reentry initiative. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 46(4), 411t436.

Retrieved from: http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ857300&site=eds-live