New Paper Offers Plan in Response to Huge Number of U.S. Prisoners Released Each Year
NEW YORK CITY—The Open Society Institute (OSI) today released a plan for the 630,000 people returning home from prison each year that would use existing money to revitalize communities, reduce recidivism, and bolster public safety (in his State of the Union address on January 20, President Bush proposed a prisoner reentry initiative).
The lead article in the November 2003 issue of Ideas for an Open Society suggests redirecting part of the country’s $54 billion prison budget to refinance education, housing, healthcare and jobs in low-income communities where children grow up in poverty with one or both parents in prison.
According to the authors, Susan Tucker and Eric Cadora of OSI’s U.S. Justice Initiative, this sort of “Justice Reinvestment,” the reallocation of criminal justice dollars to support communities most in need, would be locally tailored and determined. They contend that it would stop the pattern of cyclical imprisonment that sends two-thirds of the 630,000 people annually released back to prison. The strategy would entail a shift in the fiscal relations between the state and localities and with it the devolution of program responsibility and accountability to local government.
Under the plan, the authors argue that local government would reclaim responsibility for dealing with residents who break the law and redeploy the funds that the state would have spent for their incarceration. The localities would have the option to spend justice dollars to decrease the risks of crime, by supporting job training and drug treatment programs; without jobs in their communities, counseling to identify opportunities, and childcare, successful reentry is dubious.
According to the piece, reentry from prison would become a shared responsibility involving the community, government institutions, and the individual and his or her family. The paper explains how a civic justice corps would mobilize people returning home from prison as agents of community restoration. They would join with other community residents to rehabilitate housing and schools, redesign and rebuild parks and playgrounds, and redevelop the physical infrastructure and social fabric of their neighborhoods.
The Open Society Institute, a private operating and grantmaking foundation, is part of the network of foundations, created and funded by George Soros, active in more than 50 countries around the world.
OSI's U.S. Programs seek to strengthen democracy in the United States by addressing barriers to opportunity and justice, broadening public discussion about such barriers, and assisting marginalized groups to participate equally in civil society and to make their voices heard. OSI U.S. Programs challenges over-reliance on the market by advocating appropriate government responsibility for human needs and promoting public interest and service values. OSI U.S. Programs supports initiatives in a range of areas including access to justice for low and moderate income people; judicial independence; ending the death penalty; reducing gun violence and over-reliance on incarceration; drug policy reform; inner-city education and youth programs; fair treatment of immigrants; reproductive health and choice; campaign finance reform; and improved care of the dying.