Directors’ Message

It is by now a commonplace that the number 

of people under criminal justice supervision 

in this country has reached a record high. As 

a result, the sentencing policies driving that

number, and the field of corrections, where 

the consequences are felt, have acquired an

unprecedented salience. It is a salience defined

more by issues of magnitude, complexity, and

expense than by any consensus about future

directions. 

Are sentencing policies, as implemented through

correctional programs and practices, achieving

their intended purposes? As expressed in the

movement to eliminate indeterminate sentencing and limit judicial discretion, on the one

hand, and to radically restructure our retributive system of justice, on the other, the purposes seem contradictory, rooted in conflicting

values. The lack of consensus on where sentencing and corrections should be headed is

thus no surprise. 

Because sentencing and corrections policies

have such major consequences—for the 

allocation of government resources and, more

fundamentally and profoundly, for the quality 

of justice in this country and the safety of its 

citizens—the National Institute of Justice and the

Corrections Program Office (CPO) of the Office

of Justice Programs felt it opportune to explore

them in depth. Through a series of Executive

Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, begun

in 1998 and continuing through the year 2000,

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

May 2000 Papers From the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections

No. 7

Research in Brief

But They All Come Back:

Rethinking Prisoner Reentry 

by Jeremy Travis

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Research in Brief CONTINUED ...

SIssues for the 21st Century

ENTENCING & CORRECTION S S ENTENCING 

Issues for the 21st CenturyS

T

he explosive, continuing growth of the

Nation’s prison population is a wellknown fact. There are now over a

million people in State and Federal prisons—

more than a threefold increase since 1980.

Less well recognized is one of the consequences of this extraordinarily high figure: 

A growing number of people now under

confinement are being released into the community after serving their prison terms. If

current trends continue, this year more than

half a million people will leave prison and

return to neighborhoods across the country;

by comparison, fewer than 170,000 were

released in 1980.1

This increase in the movement from prison

door to community doorstep comes at a time

when traditional mechanisms for managing

reentry have been significantly weakened.

While it is true that almost all States still

maintain some form of postprison supervision, 14 have abolished discretionary parole

and the parole boards that historically have

overseen the processes of reentry.2

About one in five State prisoners leaves prison

with no postrelease supervision.3 In many

States, truth-in-sentencing statutes have curtailed the duration of postrelease oversight 

to 15 percent of the sentence imposed for

violent offenders. And underfunded parole

agencies in many jurisdictions have made

parole more a legal status than a systematic

process of reintegrating returning prisoners.

Assuming these trends continue, it seems the

time is right to revisit the processes and goals

of prisoner reentry. The argument presented

here is that (1) the reentry process presents

singular opportunities for advancing social

goals—opportunities difficult to pursue within the legal constructs and operational realities of current criminal justice policy; (2)

the role of “reentry manager” (the institution

responsible for achieving reentry goals) is

undergoing major redefinition; and (3) the

judiciary should play a far greater role in

managing reentry.

The emphasis here will be on the process 

of managing the transition from the status of

“imprisoned offender” to the status of “released ex-offender.” Too often, discussions of

the purposes of sentencing and corrections

are constrained by organizational boundaries
and legal constructs. For example, we attempt

to compare the value of incarceration to the

value of probation or parole. By compartmentalizing the analysis of reentry goals into debates about the separate and relative values 

of imprisonment and community corrections,

we pay a price. We overlook the reality that

offenders cross these institutional and legal

boundaries and carry with them the capacity

to achieve or frustrate the purposes of sentencing. We overlook the complex organizational relationships that exist (or could exist)

between agencies that manage imprisonment

and those that manage restricted liberty. And

we overlook the practical and symbolic importance—to the offender, his family and

community, the victim, and society as a whole

—of the moment of release. For these reasons, a focus on reentry could be a way to

“unpack” some of the philosophical and

policy dilemmas that beset sentencing today.

■ ■ ■

Reentry reconsidered 

What do we hope to accomplish in managing reentry? Why not simply show the

prisoner to the door and tell him he is free?

Why impose any restraints on his liberty when

that means setting up mechanisms for enforcing them? Martin Horn, who heads corrections in Pennsylvania, proposed the following

thought experiment: Perhaps we should simply abolish parole supervision, offer released

prisoners a set of vouchers to purchase services at lower cost, and invest the savings in

prevention programs. This is a radical idea, to

be sure, but the more radical question is why

even pay for the vouchers? What are our goals

in providing any continuing supervision and

assistance to returning prisoners? 

The overarching goal of reentry, in my view, 

is to have returned to our midst an individual

who has discharged his legal obligation to

society by serving his sentence and has

demonstrated an ability to live by society’s

rules. Accepting released offenders into the

community without a period of supervised

release is morally unsatisfying; they have not

yet earned their place at our table. By contrast, accepting an offender who has demonstrated, during a period of transition, that he

can abide by the rules can be highly satisfying

to the offender, his family, and the broader

community. Graduation ceremonies in drug

courts attest to this. 

To achieve this goal, the primary objective, for

offender and criminal justice agency alike, is

to prevent the recurrence of antisocial behavior. If that is to happen, a great deal must be

done, for each individual offender, to ascertain the conditions that lead to relapse and to

develop a plan to prevent it. This process

should begin at sentencing and continue

throughout the period of release. For each

individual, that means mobilizing the networks of formal and informal social control

that create a support system by detecting early

warning signals of relapse and responding to

them. Whatever conditions of release are

imposed should be directly related to giving

the offender the opportunity to support his

claim to reintegration; that is, they should be

geared to preventing the recurrence of antisocial behavior and promoting productive activity valued by society. The powers and authority

of the criminal justice agencies should be

mobilized to achieve these objectives. And,

when the goal of reintegration has been met,

the moment should be officially acknowledged and celebrated so that the offender’s

new life can begin. 

Currently there is no effective means of managing reentry to achieve this goal. Parole

supervision agencies could conceivably manage many parts of the process, but they cannot realistically extend their reach to the work

of correctional institutions, and they rarely

play a role at sentencing. Correctional institutions can help prepare offenders for release,

but their authority is generally limited to what

happens within prison walls. Parole boards

theoretically influenced both ends of the

2 Sentencing & Corrections

practitioners and scholars foremost in their

field, representing a broad cross-section of

points of view, were brought together to find

out if there is a better way to think about the

purposes, functions, and interdependence of

sentencing and corrections policies. 

We are fortunate in having secured the assistance of Michael Tonry, Sonosky Professor 

of Law and Public Policy at the University of

Minnesota Law School, and Director, Institute

of Criminology, University of Cambridge, as

project director. 

One product of the sessions is this series of

papers, commissioned by NIJ and the CPO as

the basis for the discussions. Drawing on the

research and experience of the session participants, the papers are intended to distill their

judgments about the strengths and weaknesses

of current practices and about the most promising ideas for future developments. 

The sessions were modeled on the executive

sessions on policing held in the 1980s and

1990s under the sponsorship of NIJ and

Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Those sessions played a role in conceptualizing

community policing and spreading it. Whether

the current sessions and the papers based on

them will be instrumental in developing a new

paradigm for sentencing and corrections, or

even whether they will generate broad-based

support for a particular model or strategy for

change, remains to be seen. It is our hope that

in the current environment of openness to new

ideas, the session papers will provoke comment, promote further discussion and, taken

together, will constitute a basic resource document on sentencing and corrections policy

issues that will prove useful to State and local

policymakers.

Julie E. Samuels

Acting Director

National Institute of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice 

Larry Meachum

Director

Corrections Program Office

U.S. Department of Justice

2 Sentencing & Corrections

Directors’ Message

CONTINUED ...
Sentencing & Corrections 3

continuum, but in reality even that model 

had little capacity to integrate sentencing

decisions, in-prison activities, and communitybased supervision. Some drug treatment

programs (discussed below) most closely

resemble components of an effective reentry

management process, and some other treatment interventions, such as programs dealing

with sex offenders, may also serve this purpose. Similarly, a number of recent innovations at the pretrial phase of criminal justice

processing can also shed light on the reentry

issue. Yet we cannot avoid concluding that

our system of justice lacks the organizational

capacity to manage the reintegration of released offenders. 

■ ■ ■

Restructuring reentry—

pressure from the collapse 

of parole

Afocus on the processes and goals of

reentry is particularly timely because 

the traditional “reentry manager”—the 

parole board—has been significantly weakened, and the system of parole supervision 

is struggling to find its sense of purpose.

Ironically, the rise in the number of prisoners

has been accompanied by loss of confidence

in the institution entrusted with supervising

their return. Moreover, as the rate of new

admissions to State prisons levels off, these

facilities are increasingly becoming populated

by parole violators, raising new questions

about the effectiveness of sanctions for

postrelease misconduct. 

The pressure on parole

The movement to abolish or severely restrict

parole continues to attract support in the

political arena. We are a long way from the

ideals of the Model Penal Code, which granted parole boards enormous power to decide

the moment and conditions of reentry.

Mandatory minimums, sentencing guidelines, restrictions on good time, and other

sentencing and corrections reforms have had

the combined effect, for a large percentage of

offenders, of limiting the temporal window 

in which release is possible. Truth-in-sentencing

laws adopted in many States have set a high

floor for that window: Although the types of

offenses covered by these laws vary, more

than half the States now require that violent

offenders serve at least 85 percent of their

sentence before they are eligible for parole.4

The net effect is that for a larger percentage

of a larger number of cases, one traditional

function of parole boards—deciding release

dates for prisoners—has been severely 

diminished, if not eliminated.

Parole boards have historically served a second important function—deciding whether a

prisoner is “ready” to be released and supervising the development of a release “plan.”

This baby may have been thrown out with the

bathwater of discretionary release. Although

imperfect, the system integrated the prerelease and postrelease functions of the relevant

government agencies and provided a rationale

for the offender’s reentry. In the best of circumstances, the parole board would be able

to say, “Harry Jones has made sufficient

progress in his personal rehabilitation while

in prison, and he has a network of family,

neighborhood support, and work opportunities on the outside sufficient for us to determine he is ready to be released.”

The underpinnings of this approach have

been severely weakened by research findings,

public outcry, and political attacks from the

left and right. Rehabilitation programs were

found by researchers to be ineffective; parole

decisions were faulted as highly arbitrary; 

and parole supervision, even if intensive, 

was found not to reduce recidivism.5 Finally,

public pressure has undermined confidence

in the parole system, particularly because 

of the highly visible, heinous crimes committed by some parolees who might otherwise

have been in prison. In this environment,

advocates of parole are having a hard time

justifying its existence.

The answer to the question, “If not parole,

then what?” is typically, “More prison.” Yet

asking a different question—“How should 

we manage the reentry of large numbers 

of people who have been imprisoned for a

long time?”—might elicit a different answer.

More prison is certainly not the answer. Just

as increased borrowing does not reduce 

the national debt but only delays the day of

reckoning, longer prison sentences cannot

obviate the reentry phenomenon: They all

come back.6 So a focus on reentry is timely

because of the sustained and successful attacks on the philosophical underpinnings 

of parole. Ironically, such a focus would

necessarily require reconsidering one of the

traditional functions of parole boards—the

integration of activities inside and outside 

the prison, and the articulation of a rationale

for setting the conditions and timing of the

prisoner’s release.

The shifting profile of the 

prison population

After growing at a staggering pace for almost

two decades, the Nation’s prison population

may be reaching a new equilibrium, as the

rate of increase shows signs of slowing down.

Hidden by the focus on overall trends, however,

is the fact that much of the most recent increase is due to an increase in time served

rather than new admissions. Further analysis

reveals that admissions resulting from parole

violations now drive much of the prison

growth: Parole violators now constitute 34

percent of all admissions, a figure that has

almost doubled since 1980.7 The growth in

absolute numbers underscores the power 

of parole failures to increase prison populations: In 1991, about 140,000 parole violators were returned to prison; 7 years later,

that number had risen to more than 200,000 —

a 45-percent increase.8 Another policy perspective highlights the lost reentry opportunities represented by these developments: 

Sentencing & Corrections 3
In 1984, 70 percent of those who left parole

status were determined to be “successful”; in

1996, less than half successfully completed

their parole terms and a like percentage were

returned to prison.9 Parole supervision is 

now as likely to end up in revocation as in

reintegration.

In short, the factors governing use of prison

space for punishment purposes have changed

significantly. The growing number of prisoners

released on parole who face an increased

likelihood of revocation will be an ever greater

driver of prison expansion. Reversing the trend

would certainly relieve pressure on prison

space. More successful reentry management

would also restore parole supervision as a

period of transition to a law-abiding life. 

■ ■ ■

Reentry—cues from the 

pretrial phase

I

t is useful to note that reentry is a nearly

universal experience for criminal defendants, not just returning prisoners. Everyone

who is arrested, charged with a crime, and

then released from custody moves from a

state of imprisonment to a state of liberty.

Everyone who is released on bail, placed on

probation after a period of pretrial detention,

sentenced to weekend jail, or released to a

drug treatment facility experiences a form of

reentry. 

Reentry in the pretrial context offers insights

that can enhance reexamination of the classic

challenges posed by returning prisoners.

Something as simple as a clear explanation of

the terms of pretrial release, made by a judge

to a defendant and his family, can advance the

interests of justice. Notifying the victim of

spousal abuse that her attacker is about to be

released—and developing safety plans and

securing appropriate protective orders—can

help ensure her safety. Requiring that an

offender provide for restitution while on

probation can make victims feel that justice

has been served. Placing an offender in a

drug treatment program and explaining the

terms of his participation in drug court can

be the beginning of the road to recovery from

drug addiction.

The events that occur with some frequency 

in the pretrial context of reentry management

can induce us to think more broadly about

reentry in the postimprisonment context. We

might ask questions not typically considered at

the point of release from prison: What authoritative figure should explain the conditions of

liberty to a prisoner? Can adequate provisions

be made for victim safety and public safety?

Can restitution goals be incorporated and

achieved? Can participation in drug treatment

or other support programs be integrated into

the process of reentry from prison? The lessons learned from innovative pretrial practices

can inform the development of policies to

manage reentry on the other end of the continuum—from prison to the community.

■ ■ ■

New directions in policy

Fortunately, at the same time parole has 

lost its effectiveness as reentry manager,

important innovations are taking place that

suggest different opportunities—and risks—

for managing reentry in new ways. The drug

treatment continuum, for example, mixes

treatment processes with criminal justice

processes to achieve successful reentry by

reducing drug use and recidivism. Recent

policies on sex offenders are a counterexample showing how policy shifts and new legal

doctrines can militate against successful

reentry. Innovative programs that manage

community supervision to achieve public

safety demonstrate how a variety of criminal

justice agencies can enforce the terms of

reentry. Finally, restorative justice programs

are defining new roles for victims, families,

and offenders, as well as for judges, police

officers, and others, in shaping the terms of

reentry. 

The success of the drug 

treatment continuum

One of the more important developments

under way in criminal justice policy is the

linkage of criminal justice processes to drug

treatment processes. Drug courts are one

manifestation; increased funding for drug

treatment in prisons is another; expanded 

use of drug testing as a condition of pretrial

release, probation, or parole is still another.

These developments shed light on a reconsideration of reentry. Research findings on the

effectiveness of drug treatment offer hope 

that recidivism can be reduced. New models

of treatment supervision and judicial oversight

suggest different approaches to reentry management. And the understanding of relapse

leads to new strategies for risk management.

Treatment effectiveness in the criminal

justice context. The evaluation of Delaware’s

“Key-Crest” therapeutic community treatment

program typifies the literature on treatment

effectiveness and demonstrates the efficacy 

of a continuum of treatment after release.

Researchers found that drug-involved offenders who were treated both in prison and after

release did better at staying drug free and

arrest free than those who received no treatment. They also did better than those treated

only in prison. In other words, treatment

following release produced a powerful

“booster” effect. Preliminary findings of 

a 3-year followup of these 6-month and 18-

month studies confirmed the effectiveness 

of a continuum of treatment after release.10

Similar research in drug courts is not yet

mature, but evidence from the programs and

from a limited number of evaluative studies 

is very promising.11 Contrary to the view that

“nothing works,” this research supports the

conclusion that drug treatment, provided in

the criminal justice context, works to reduce

crime and drug abuse.

Reentry models. The innovations in the

drug treatment continuum also provide rich

examples of successful reentry management.

4 Sentencing & Corrections 4 Sentencing & Corrections
Sentencing & Corrections 5

Drug treatment programs in prison are classic reentry initiatives. They assume a fixed 

(or predictable) release date. Typically, only

inmates within a year of release may participate. The programmatic offering is explicitly

tied to the conditions of reentering the community—how to avoid relapse. And for programs like Delaware’s Crest, which include

postrelease supervision, the continuum is

complete and reentry is managed from the

community side as well. 

Although drug courts do not represent themselves as being in the reentry business, the

drug court movement also offers relevant

insights. Participating offenders are continually reminded by the judge that their good

behavior buffers them from the loss of liberty.

Most drug courts operate with clearly articulated contracts. A typical contract may state

that the first drug-positive urine test will 

result in a warning, the second in a day in 

the jury box (truly low-cost detention), the

third in a 3-day stay in jail, and the fourth in

revocation of bail or imposition of a sentence

of imprisonment. 

This finely calibrated use of the scarce resources of judicial authority and prison capacity to achieve demonstrable changes in

behavior has revolutionary implications for

the current operating philosophies of probation and parole. Is it possible to imagine a

system in which success and failure at meeting the conditions of postconviction release

are so carefully monitored by a figure having

the moral authority of a drug court judge,

with such clearly delineated consequences 

for failure (and rewards for success), and

with the sparing use of prison to achieve

socially desirable results?

Deconstructing risk and relapse. Finally,

on a more conceptual level, the success of 

the drug treatment continuum illustrates the

applicability of the concept of “relapse” in 

the criminal justice context. Standing in stark

contrast to popular criminal justice notions of

“zero tolerance,” the concept recognizes the

possibility of relapse as a daily threat. People

who have been sober for decades still identify

themselves as alcoholics who take sobriety a

day at a time.

The moment of relapse is an occasion to

work harder to support the individual offender,

not an occasion to shun or exile him. Viewed

from this perspective, the practice of sending

a parolee back to prison to finish the rest of

his term because of dirty urine or a technical

violation of parole seems bizarre indeed. The

parsimonious sanctions meted out by drug

courts, designed to change behavior, mark 

a different path for achieving the goals of

reintegration. 

Finally, the concept of relapse recognizes the

growing body of scientific literature demonstrating that environmental factors can trigger

brain reactions related to the disease known

as addiction.12 Simply placing a recovering

addict at the street corner where he used to

buy drugs may cause chemical reactions in

his brain that increase the craving for the

drug. Thus, relapse prevention frequently

involves managing the addict’s access to a

stimulating environment and training him to

sever the links between that environment and

his actions. As Michael E. Smith and Walter J.

Dickey argue in another paper in this series,

the risk posed by an offender in the community is highly contextual.13 “Risk” is not a

static attribute of a particular offender; rather,

an offender’s environment, including prospective guardians and opportunities for reoffending, influences his propensity to make unwise

choices. Just as drug court judges and drug

treatment providers seek to reduce the risk of

relapse by focusing on the context of offending, so too reentry managers must account

for the context into which returning prisoners

are placed.

Applying some of the lessons of the drug

treatment continuum to the generic reentry

phenomenon might prompt us to ask additional questions: What would be the continuum of risk management? What internal and

external support systems would be constructed for the offender? What level of personal

accountability would be required? How would

the support system be activated at times of

relapse, whether real or potential? How would

moments and environments that trigger relapse be reduced? How could the scarce

resource of imprisonment be calibrated to

new acts of antisocial behavior?

The sex offender conundrum

The shifting sands of policies on sex offenders

underscore the need for careful development

of new reentry paradigms. Few areas of sentencing policy have seen redefinition as extensive as this one. Currently, 49 States require

that communities be notified so residents

know when a convicted sex offender comes to

live in their midst. Every State now has a sex

offender registry (some of them are even

online or on CD-ROM, with photos of the

offenders) maintained by law enforcement

agencies. A National Sex Offender Registry,

ordered by the President in 1996, became

fully operational in 1999. Some States subject

sex offenders who are on parole or probation to regular polygraph tests to ascertain

whether they have experienced the urge to

commit new sex offenses (or have already

done so). Chemical castration is advocated 

by some as an appropriate form of punishment. The Supreme Court recently ruled (see

Kansas v. Hendricks, 117 S.Ct. 2072) that a

State may hold sexual predators beyond their

sentence if they are found “mentally abnormal”

and likely to commit new crimes, and that

this confinement does not constitute punishment.14

Questions in search of answers. These

remarkable pressures on previously settled

doctrines of jurisprudence and theories of

punishment are worthy of study on their own

terms. They raise a number of questions:

Where should sex offenders live—clustered

together or scattered so that each community

Sentencing & Corrections 5
has its “share”? Can a person have his name

legitimately removed from a sex offender

registry? (Indeed, what constitutes a “sex

offender”?) How should communities react

when notified that a new neighbor is on such

a list? How should sex offenders be treated

when in mental institutions that look like

prisons? On what basis will they be determined ready for release and with what conditions? The rapidly changing policies on these

issues are also noteworthy because the research on sex offenses and offenders is notably weak. Not much is known about sex

offenders beyond the fact that there are 

many types. Adult rapists, child rapists, pederasts, pedophiles, child abusers—all are

quite different from each other. Little is

known about the trajectory of behavior over

the lifetime of an offender. What triggers the

behavior? What causes desistence? What

treatments work?

Could a case study offer answers? A

focused study of sex offender programs would

shed light on the way reentry issues are defined in the crosscurrents of correctional

policy, sentencing policy, and the politics of

crime in this highly charged atmosphere.

Ohio’s experience suggests the possibilities.

Almost 20 percent of the State’s corrections

population consists of inmates classified as

sex offenders.15 The Sex Offender Risk

Reduction Center, established in 1995 by

Reginald Wilkinson, Director of Ohio’s

Department of Rehabilitation and Correction,

offers an integrated approach involving outpatient and residential programs directed by

mental health professionals and the requirement that all sex offenders continue and

complete programming after release. The

extensive psychological programming and 

the links to community-based programs are

impressive and suggest intriguing comparisons with the drug treatment continuum

discussed earlier. 

A focused, pragmatic inquiry would examine

the relationship between what is available on

the inside and the outside and could pose

questions such as the following: How are sex

offenders prepared for their new status on

release? How are their families and support

systems made part of the equation? How are

relapse issues handled, and what is expected

of the offender and his support system when

relapse becomes a real possibility? How are

the police involved in the process? How are

mental health providers involved? How are

communities engaged in the parole decision?

What convincing arguments can be made

against the predictable sex-offender version 

of NIMBY? This inquiry would enable us to

refocus some of the policy questions inherent

in reentry management broadly defined. 

The public safety rationale for

community corrections 

Reconsideration of reentry issues is timely

also because of a new sentiment in the community corrections profession that can make

community supervision, if redefined, a major

contribution to public safety. 

The approach in practice. “Exhibit A” in

this line of argument is the Boston experience. A coalition of criminal justice entities

spanning the range of Federal and State agencies, from enforcement to probation, systematically set out to reduce gun violence among

youth gang members. The results have been

breathtaking. In the 2 years following implementation in 1996, homicide victimization

among young people in Boston (those under

24) fell more than 70 percent—to levels

below even those of the years preceding the

youth violence epidemic.16 A critical component of the experiment was the probation

department, which notably did not act alone

but, rather, in close concert with the police.

In “Operation Night Light,” as the probationpolice component of the program is called,

the courts agreed to set and enforce conditions of probation tailored to chronic youthful offenders. These new expectations were

communicated expressly and clearly to the

targeted youth population by a broad array 

of agencies that then enforced those expectations when violence resurfaced. 

“Exhibit B” is the Neighborhood Based

Supervision (NBS) program of Washington

State’s Department of Corrections, which

takes community corrections officers out

from behind their desks and places them

directly in neighborhoods. There they join

forces with community policing officers to

work with the community in supervising

released offenders. With NBS in Spokane, 

the traditional monitoring role of probation

and parole has expanded to include that of

information and resource broker, mediator,

adviser, advocate, and counselor, and the

community is brought into the process to

help hold offenders accountable for their

behavior.

“Exhibit C” is the demonstration project now

under way in two Wisconsin counties. The

premise is that released offenders can be a

resource for reducing crime. Judges, probation and parole agents, and prosecutors work

together to develop strategies for imposing

and carrying out sentences that reflect a

contextual assessment of an offender’s risk 

to the community. In this pilot project, the

concept of risk is redefined to reflect the dayto-day realities of the offender’s life in his

community. This movement from a strict “just

deserts” mode of sentencing to a risk-based

model also provides the foundation for new

sentencing legislation in Washington State.

What these programs have in common is the

idea that offenders under community supervision are a valuable asset. Stated differently, the

research finding that offenders under probation and parole supervision commit a disproportionate amount of crime presents a rare

opportunity to produce a commodity—

safety—that is highly valued. Set against 

the low expectation of probation and parole

agencies being able to deliver this commodity,

such a view of community corrections becomes imbued with the enthusiasm usually

6 Sentencing & Corrections 6 Sentencing & Corrections
seen in high-risk business ventures and too

rarely seen in criminal justice reform efforts. 

New goals and roles. This approach turns

traditional notions of offender-community

relationships upside down. Dennis Maloney

has spearheaded the reinvention of community corrections in Oregon’s Deschutes County

under the banner of the community justice

movement, a change in organizational culture suggested in the agency’s new name: 

the Department of Community Justice. He

rallies his troops (the probationers) as

though they were being sent to work in

Civilian Conservation Corps camps during 

the Depression, assigning them to highly

visible public works projects as their reparation for the harm they have caused. Michael

E. Smith and Walter J. Dickey, in Wisconsin,

envision a street corner drug market where

paroled offenders, parole officers, police

officers, and young people likely to enter the

drug market develop and implement strategies to reduce the level of violence and drug

selling taking place there. Former Washington

Corrections Administrator Chase Riveland, 

in his work with Neighborhood Based

Supervision in Spokane, put parole officers

and police officers in the same room, told

them to go talk with community residents

about the offenders living in their midst, and

was pleased when a parole officer told him

the new team goal is to see increased home

ownership because that will mean the community is safer. In his work in Boston,

Harvard’s David Kennedy highlights the importance of bringing all gang members together to meet with the U.S. attorney and

every other relevant law enforcement official

to hear the message that violence will no

longer be tolerated and then enforcing that

message with action when necessary.17

These initiatives are a far cry from traditional

social work approaches to parole and probation. Anonymity is replaced with in-your-face

contact. The prohibition against consorting

with known criminals is replaced with 

the activism of community justice teams.

Deskbound, 9-to-5 casework is replaced 

with enforcing curfews by camping outside

the probationer’s door at 10 p.m. to make

sure he is home. The organizational boundaries and cultural incompatibility that kept

police and probation apart are replaced by

common purpose. Offenders are seen as

assets to be managed rather than merely

liabilities to be supervised. The organizing

principle of community corrections work is

no longer a caseload organized by level of

risk determined by a scoring instrument, by

type of offender, or randomly. In the new

model, the work of community corrections

can be organized by the neighborhood where

the offender lives, the location of the crime

problem to be addressed, or the place where

the community justice project is located.

Finally, the role of the community corrections

officer is radically different. It is that of partner with the police in enforcement (as in

Boston), community outreach worker (as in

Spokane), and jobs and service broker (as in

Deschutes County).

Finding the links to reentry. What still

needs to be considered are the implications

of these initiatives for reentry—just how the

offender is released into this new world of

supervision. A study of Boston’s experience

would illustrate how judges, police officers,

and probation officers explained to young

offenders on probation just what the new

terms of probation really mean. A study of

Washington’s Neighborhood Based Supervision would reveal what the parole and police

officers working in Spokane have learned

about setting community norms for offenders’

behavior following reentry. A study of

Deschutes County would demonstrate whether

the organizational transformation to a community justice department has translated into

new expectations among prisoners awaiting

release. Do inmates know, for example, that

the parole they are about to receive is unlike

any other they have experienced? How has the

language of the street conveyed new messages

about behavior and its consequences? With

these insights in hand, we could ask how a

seamless system of reentry could reinforce

these messages.

Restorative justice

Finally, the reentry discussion is timely because of innovations on the restorative justice

frontier. Although this is a grassroots movement, much of the innovation is taking place

within the structure of the criminal justice

system. Thus, some is court based, with 

the formal hearing giving way to an alternative dispute resolution process involving the

victim, offender, lawyers, and community

residents, in addition to the judge, in decisionmaking.18 Some is police based, with

officers facilitating family group conferences

that involve victims, family members, and 

the offender.19 Some is corrections based, 

as exemplified by the Reparative Citizen

Boards, designed by Vermont Department 

of Corrections head John Gorcyzk, on which

community members interact with offenders

to draw up a contract stipulating probation

conditions.20 Some is prosecution based, as

exemplified by the Neighborhood Conference

Committees developed under Travis County,

Texas, District Attorney Ronald Earle, where

panels of citizens meet with juvenile offenders

and, separately, with their parents and together draw up a contract spelling out the conditions of diversion from court.21 The range of

these restorative innovations and the energy

behind them are truly exciting. 

Reintegration the goal. For purposes of this

exploration of reentry, there is great power in

the notion, implicit in restorative justice initiatives, that an important purpose of the criminal sanction is reintegrating the offender into

the community following his acceptance of

personal responsibility for the harm done to

victim and community and his “payment” of

appropriate penance. Of all the attention paid

to various “shaming” programs, little focuses

on the implications of the term “reintegrative,” which, according to the literature, is 

Sentencing & Corrections 7
the key modifier. Shaming without a reintegrative purpose, the literature suggests, is 

at best wasted effort and at worst counterproductive.22

Victims and the community. The second

dimension of restorative justice philosophy

relates to the victim and the community

wronged by the crime. Victims cannot be

restored to the status quo ante, nor can

offenders be expected to repair all financial

harm they caused their victims. Yet the social

and psychological “restoration” of victims is,

in my view, a major societal purpose that can

be accomplished in the administration of

justice. Our current approach frustrates this

purpose, however. Progress is piecemeal.

Meaningful participation of victims in court

proceedings is a good beginning; it is accomplished to a larger degree in restorative 

programs. Restitution can be enhanced by 

the involvement of victims. Respect for the

processes of government can be enhanced.

Fear of offenders can be reduced. Unfortunately,

however, victim involvement, now increasingly

required by statutes and constitutional amendments, is often seen by the agencies of justice

as a burden rather than an opportunity to

advance the interests of justice. Restorative

justice initiatives break new conceptual

ground for the possibilities of substantive

victim participation.

Restorative justice initiatives also represent,

without stating it in so many words, significant

new processes for defining the terms of reentry. The negotiation of relationships among

the parties affected by the crime results in a

new contract—with reentry of the offender

understood in terms of that contract. The

victim, the family, the offender, and other

interested parties have a direct role in negotiating the contract and consequently an interest in its enforcement. “Supervision” is

privatized by allowing the forces of informal

control—family, neighbors, police officers,

victims—to be part of the supervisory

process. These networks—the forces thought

by researchers to be most effective at reducing crime23—are explicitly and formally given

new tasks to accomplish in managing the

reintegration of the offender.

■ ■ ■

A provocative proposal

Let’s imagine a world unconstrained by

budgetary realities, legal conventions, or

implementation considerations. In that world,

let’s consider a model of reentry that draws

on and applies the lessons learned from the

innovations described here. We make two

assumptions: that people are still sent to

prison, and that they are released back into

the community with some portion of their

sentence still to be served.

Judges as reentry managers

If a new vision were written on a clean slate,

the role of reentry management would best be

assigned, in my view, to the sentencing judge,

whose duties would be expanded to create a

“reentry court.” At the time of sentencing, the

judge would say to the offender, “John Smith,

you are being sentenced to X years, Y months

of which will be served in the community

under my supervision. Our goal is to admit

you back into our community after you pay

your debt for this offense and demonstrate

your ability to live by our rules. Starting today,

we will develop, with your involvement, a plan

to achieve that goal. The plan will require

some hard work of you, beginning in prison

and continuing—and getting harder—after

you return to the community. It will also

require that your family, friends, neighbors,

and any other people interested in your welfare commit to the goal of your successful

return. I will oversee your entire sentence to

make sure the goal is achieved, including

monitoring your participation in prison programs that prepare you for release. Many

other criminal justice agencies—police,

corrections, parole, probation, drug treatment, and others—will be part of a team

committed to achieving the goal. If you do not

keep up your end of the bargain, I will further

restrict your liberty, although only in amounts

proportionate to your failure. If you commit a

crime again after your release, all bets are off.

If you do keep up your end of the bargain, it

is within my power to accelerate the completion of your sentence, to return privileges that

might be lost (such as your right to hold certain kinds of jobs or your right to vote), and

to welcome you back to the community.”

At the time of sentencing, the judge would

also convene the stakeholders who would be

responsible for the offender’s reentry. They

would be asked to focus on that day, perhaps

years in the future, when John returns home.

How can he be best prepared for that day and

for a successful reentry? What does his support network commit to doing to ensure that

success? A “community justice officer” (who

could be a police officer, probation officer, or

parole officer) would also be involved, since

there might be special conditions, geared to

the neighborhood, that the offender would

have to meet.

The judge-centered model described here

obviously borrows heavily from the drug

court experience. Both feature an ongoing,

central role for the judge, a “contract” drawn

up between court and offender, discretion on

the judge’s part to impose graduated sanctions for various levels of failure to meet the

conditions imposed, the promise of the end

of supervision as an occasion for ceremonial

recognition. 

Incarceration as a prelude 

to reentry

If John goes to prison, a significant purpose

of his activities behind bars would be preparation for reentry. What does that mean? It

depends on the type of offender and the

offense, and could include sex offender treatment, job readiness, education and/or training, a residential drug treatment program,

and anger management. These activities

would also involve people, support systems,

8 Sentencing & Corrections 8 Sentencing & Corrections
Sentencing & Corrections 9

and social service and other programs based

in John’s neighborhood. Drug treatment in

prison should be linked to drug treatment in

the community, job training should be linked

to work outside, and so forth. In other words,

mirror support systems should be established

so that John can move from one to the other

seamlessly upon release.

Even while in prison, John would continue to

pay restitution to his victim or to the community he has harmed—tangible, measurable

restitution. A lot of time would be spent with

John’s family, to keep family ties strong and 

to talk about what John will be like when 

he returns home. As the release date approached, the circle would widen, as the

support system was brought into the prison 

to discuss how to keep the offender on the

straight and narrow after release. Buddy

systems would be established and training in

the early warning signs of relapse provided.

Again, the community justice officer could

broker this process. All the while, the judge

would be kept apprised of progress. 

Setting the terms of release

When released, John would be brought back

to court, perhaps the same courtroom where

he was sentenced. A public recognition ceremony would be held, before an audience of

family and other members of the support

team, and the judge would announce that

John has completed a milestone in repaying

his debt to society. Now, the judge would

declare, the success of the next step depends

on John, his support system, and the agencies

of government represented by the community

justice officer. 

The terms of the next phase would be clearly

articulated. If John’s case were typical, he

would have to remain drug free, make restitution to his victim and reparation to his community, work to make his community safer,

participate in programs that began in prison

(work, education, and the like), avoid situations that could trigger relapse, and refrain

from committing crime. He would be required to appear in court every month to

demonstrate how well the plan was working.

Making the contract work

The judge presiding over a reentry court

would be responsible for making sure that

John held up his end of the bargain and that

the government agencies and the support

system were doing their parts. As in drug

courts, the court appearances need not be

long, drawn-out affairs; the purpose of invoking the authority of the court would be to

impress on John that he has important work

to do and to mobilize the support network.

The power of the court would be invoked

sparingly when John failed to make progress.

The court would view relapse in its broadest

sense and would use the powers at its disposal (to impose prison sentences, greater 

restrictions on liberty, fines, and similar 

sanctions) to ensure that John toes the line.

His family and other members of his support

system would be encouraged to attend these

court hearings. The community justice officer

would keep the court apprised of neighborhood developments involving the offender. To

the extent John became involved in programs

that made his community safer, there would

be occasion for special commendation. The

judge would be empowered by statute to

accelerate the end of the period of supervision, to remove such legal restrictions as the

ban on voting, and to oversee John’s “graduation” from the program—his successful

reentry into the community.

This approach would have several benefits. It

cuts across organizational boundaries, making it more likely that offenders are both held

accountable and supported in fulfilling their

part of the reentry bargain. By involving family

members, friends, and other interested parties in the reentry plan, it expands the reach

of positive influences upon the offender. By

creating a supervisory role for judges, the

approach gives them far greater capacity to

achieve the purposes of sentencing. Most

important, by focusing on the inexorable fact

that the prison sentence will one day be completed and the offender will come back to 

live in the community, the approach directs

private and public energies and resources

toward the goal of successful reintegration. 

■ ■ ■

Conclusion

To be sure, the reentry model outlined

here would not find easy acceptance.

Even if it were embraced in principle, too

much may be invested in the current system

to consider undertaking such a major overhaul. Then there are the multiple logistical

challenges, with workload considerations—

particularly those of judges and community

corrections officers—paramount. The main

challenge would be to build the interagency

relationships essential to making the model

work. That would involve, among other

things, creating a link on the conceptual level

between incarceration on the one hand and

probation and parole on the other.

Perhaps the rationales for revisiting reentry

outlined here—among them current sentencing policies that mean more returning 

offenders, the issue of relapse, the eclipse

of traditional parole—are not convincing on

their own. But add to them the array of innovations under way on such fronts as drug

courts, the pretrial phase of justice processing, and restorative justice, as well as in projects nationwide that are marshaling the forces

of corrections in the service of public safety,

and the times seem to offer that rare mix of

policy challenge and opportunity for new ways

of doing business.

Notes

1. Bureau of Justice Statistics, unpublished data

for 1998; Prisoners in State and Federal

Institutions on December 31, 1980, National

Prisoner Statistics Bulletin, Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics,

March 1982: 2, 7, NCJ 80520; Correctional

Populations in the United States, 1996,

Sentencing & Corrections 9
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 1999: 86, 

NCJ 170013.

2. Ditton, Paula M., and Doris James Wilson,

Truth in Sentencing in State Prisons, Special

Report, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, January 1999:

3, NCJ 170032.

3. The latest figure, for 1997, indicates that 18.6

percent of prisoners released from State prison

leave without correctional supervision (Ditton 

and Wilson, Truth in Sentencing, 10). 

4. Ibid., 2.

5. Glaser, Daniel, The Effectiveness of a Prison

and Parole System, Indianapolis, IN: BobbsMerrill, 1969; Martinson, Robert, “What Works?

—Questions and Answers About Prison Reform,”

Public Interest 35 (2) (1974): 22–54; Sechrest,

Lee, Susan White, and Elizabeth Brown, The

Rehabilitation of Criminal Offenders: Problems

and Prospects, Washington, DC: National Academy

of Sciences, 1979; DiIulio, John, “Reinventing

Parole and Probation,” Brookings Review 15 (2)

(1997): 40–42; Citizens’ Inquiry on Parole and

Criminal Justice, Report on New York Parole, New

York: Citizens’ Inquiry, 1974; Petersilia, Joan, and

Susan Turner, “Intensive Probation and Parole,” in

Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol.

17, ed. Michael Tonry, Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1993: 281–335. 

6. The rhetorical point is not the literal fact. A

certain proportion of prisoners do not return 

to the community. Of the 1.2 million prisoners,

a small number (about 3,300 per year) die in

prison as a result of illness or other natural 

causes, suicide, execution, or for another reason.

Correctional Populations in the United States,

1996, 95. 

7. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Correctional

Populations in the United States, 1996, iii, 9;

Snell, Tracy L., Correctional Populations in 

the United States, 1993, Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics,

October 1995: 12, NCJ 156241.

8. Figure for 1991 calculated from Correctional

Populations in the United States, 1996; figure

for 1998 figure is from unpublished Bureau of

Justice Statistics data. 

9. Petersilia, Joan, “Parole and Prisoner Reentry in

the United States,” in Prisons, ed. Michael Tonry

and Joan Petersilia (Crime and Justice: A Review

of Research, Volume 26), Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1999: 513.

10. Inciardi, James A., A Corrections-Based

Continuum of Effective Drug Abuse Treatment, Research Preview, Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice,

June 1996, NCJ 152692; and Martin, Stan, et al.,

“Three-Year Outcomes of Therapeutic Community

Treatment for Drug-Involved Offenders in Delaware:

From Prison to Work Release to Aftercare,” Prison

Journal 79 (3) (September 1999): 294–320.

11. See Looking at a Decade of Drug Courts,

Drug Court Clearinghouse and Technical Assistance

Project, American University, Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,

Drug Courts Program Office, June 1998: 4, NCJ

171140.

12. Rawson, Richard A., Treatment for Stimulant Use Disorders (Treatment Improvement

Protocol [TIP] Series, 33), DHHS Publication No.

SMA 99–3296, Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services, Center for Substance

Abuse Treatment, 1999.

13. Reforming Sentencing and Corrections for

Just Punishment and Public Safety, Research in

Brief, Sentencing and Corrections: Issues for the

21st Century, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

Justice, National Institute of Justice and Corrections

Program Office, September 1999, NCJ 175724.

14. 521 U.S. 346, 1997.

15. Information from the Bureau of Research,

Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Figure is as of 1999.

16. Boston Police Department, “Operation Cease

Fire,” unpublished document, no date (abstract

page).

17. Kennedy, David, “Pulling Levers: Getting

Deterrence Right,” National Institute of Justice

Journal 236 (July 1998): 2–8. 

18. Stuart, Barry, “Circle Sentencing in Canada: 

A Partnership of the Community and the Criminal

Justice System,” International Journal of

Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 20

(2) (Fall 1996): 291–309; Bazemore, Gordon,

“Conferences, Circles, Boards, and Mediations:

The ‘New Wave’ of Community Justice Decisionmaking,” Federal Probation 61 (2) (June 1997):

25–37; and Stuart, Barry, “Circle Sentencing:

Turning Swords Into Ploughshares,” in

Restorative Justice: International Perspectives,

ed. Burt Galaway and Joe Hudson, Monsey, NY:

Criminal Justice Press, 1996: 193–206. 

19. An example is the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,

Police Family Group Conferencing program. 

The report of the NIJ-sponsored evaluation is

“Restorative Policing Experiment: The Bethlehem

Pennsylvania Police Family Group Conferencing

Project,” by Paul McCold and Benjamin Wachtel,

final report submitted to NIJ, May 1998 (grant no.

95–IJ–CX–0042).

20. Vermont Reparative Probation, “Program

Overview,” n.p., 1999; and Vermont Reparative

Probation, “Fact Sheet,” n.p., 1999.

21. The procedure followed by the Neighborhood

Conference Committees is described in Travis

County Neighborhood Conference Committees

Training Manual, Version VI, n.p., June 1999. 

22. Braithwaite, J., Crime, Shame and

Reintegration, New York: Cambridge University

Press, 1994: 55, 81, 102; and Braithwaite, J.,

“Reintegrative Shaming, Republicanism, and

Policy,” Crime and Public Policy, ed. Hugh D.

Barlow, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995: 193–194.

23. See Neighborhood Collective Efficacy—Does

It Help Reduce Violence? by Robert J. Sampson,

Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls, Research

Preview, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

National Institute of Justice, April 1998, FS 000203.

10 Sentencing & Corrections 10 Sentencing & Corrections

Jeremy Travis, former Director of the National

Institute of Justice, is a Senior Fellow with The

Urban Institute.

This study was supported by cooperative agreement

97–MUMU–K006 between the National Institute of

Justice and the University of Minnesota.

Findings and conclusions of the research reported

here are those of the author and do not necessarily

reflect the official position or policies of the U.S.

Department of Justice. 

The National Institute of Justice is a component

of the Office of Justice Programs, which also

includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the

Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile

Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the

Office for Victims of Crime.

This and other NIJ publications can be found 

at and downloaded from the NIJ Web site

(http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij).

NCJ 181413
Sentencing & Corrections 11

Neal Bryant

Senator

Oregon State Senate

Harold Clarke

Director

Department of Correctional Services

State of Nevada

Cheryl Crawford

Deputy Director, Office of 

Development and Communications

National Institute of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice

Barbara Damchik-Dykes

Project Coordinator

Executive Sessions on Sentencing 

and Corrections

Walter Dickey

Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law

University of Wisconsin 

Ronald Earle

District Attorney

Austin, Texas

Tony Fabelo

Director

Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council

Richard S. Gebelein

Superior Court Judge

Wilmington, Delaware

John Gorczyk

Commissioner

Department of Corrections

State of Vermont

Kathleen Hawk Sawyer

Director

Federal Bureau of Prisons

U.S. Department of Justice

Sally T. Hillsman

Deputy Director

National Institute of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice

Martin Horn

Secretary

Department of Corrections

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Susan M. Hunter

Chief, Prisons Division

National Institute of Corrections

U.S. Department of Justice 

Leena Kurki

Research Associate 

Law School

University of Minnesota

Project Associate

Executive Sessions on Sentencing 

and Corrections 

John J. Larivee

Chief Executive Officer

Community Resources for Justice

Joe Lehman

Secretary

Department of Corrections

State of Washington

Dennis Maloney

Director

Deschutes County (Oregon) 

Department of Community Justice

Larry Meachum

Director

Corrections Program Office

Office of Justice Programs

U.S. Department of Justice

Mark H. Moore

Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice

Policy and Management

John F. Kennedy School of Government

Harvard University

Norval Morris

Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminology

University of Chicago

Joan Petersilia

Professor of Criminology, 

Law and Society

School of Social Ecology

University of California, Irvine

Kay Pranis

Restorative Justice Planner

Department of Corrections

State of Minnesota

Michael Quinlan

Former Director

Federal Bureau of Prisons 

U.S. Department of Justice 

Chase Riveland

Principal

Riveland Associates

Thomas W. Ross

Superior Court Judge, 

18th Judicial District

Chair, North Carolina Sentencing 

and Policy Advisory Commission

Dora Schriro

Director

Department of Corrections

State of Missouri

Michael Smith

Professor of Law

University of Wisconsin 

Morris Thigpen

Director

National Institute of Corrections

U.S. Department of Justice

Michael Tonry

Director

Institute of Criminology

University of Cambridge

Sonosky Professor of 

Law and Public Policy

University of Minnesota 

Project Director

Executive Sessions on Sentencing 

and Corrections

Jeremy Travis

Senior Fellow

The Urban Institute

Former Director

National Institute of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice

Reginald A. Wilkinson

Director

Department of Rehabilitation 

and Correction

State of Ohio

The Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections 

Convened the following distinguished panel of leaders in the fields: