Ex-Offender Reentry Program United States Conference of Mayors 76 th Annual Conference DuPont Room June 21, 2008 Mayor Sheila Dixon Mayor Wayne Smith Baltimore Irvington Co-Chair Co-Chair

2 Scope of Problem

3 National Statistics Prison. 700,000 people released from state and federal prisons per year (NY Times, 4/8/2008) Jail. 34,000 people released from jail each day; 230,000 per week; or ~12 million people per year (Urban Institute, Life After Lockup, May 2008)

4 Baltimore Statistics Population 640, people return from state prison to communities in Baltimore per year. 45% of these return to six zip codes -- our most vulnerable communities. 47% of people returning to Baltimore are released due to the expiration of their sentence and so are not under the supervision of parole or probation. (Maryland State Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services) (Maryland State Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services)

5 Baltimore 100 people are released from the Baltimore’s jail everyday, not including the significant number of people who leave booking within the first 24 hours 35,000 people per year are released to the community from jail after having been committed The number grows to close to 90,000 when everyone who was booked is included

6 Philadelphia Statistics Population – 1.4 million people 22,341 people returned to Philadelphia communities from state prisons and county jails during 2007 Half of those people return to five zip codes in Philadelphia

7 Chicago Population million people 16,000 people return to communities from state prison on an annual basis

8 Los Angeles Population million people More than 400 people are released from Los Angeles county jail on a daily basis.

9 Understanding the Needs of People Returning to Communities

10 30% of jail population were unemployed during the month before incarceration 60% of jail population have not graduated from high school or received a GED 68% of jail population have substance abuse problems 24% of jail population show symptoms of psychosis 37% of jail population report a current medical problem (including chronic diseases, infectious diseases and injuries) Urban Institute, Life After Lockup, May 2008.

11 Pittsburgh Population 300,000; 1.3 million people in Allegheny County people returning to Pittsburg area from state prison on an annual basis 60% of the people returning from state prisons to the Pittsburgh area are accessing DHS services within 3 months of return. 19% of returning people access services within a week

12 ISSUES How do we deal with the volume of people returning to our communities from prison and jail and the complexity of their needs? What do we do about the fact that so many of them are returning to communities that are already challenged by a lack of resources? How do we connect local resources to our jails when in most cases we have little or no notice of when someone will be released? How can we do a better job of recruiting and engaging churches – and their members – to participate in reentry work as mentors and part of the community support network? How do we make sure that our law enforcement strategies and reentry strategies are consistent?