Rutgers Teams with Service Agencies to Help Reduce Recidivism in Camden

CAMDEN --  Upon serving their sentences, individuals released from the penal system confront an overwhelming challenge:  re-entering society as productive citizens. Sadly, many of these citizens never receive the guidance that they need to successfully navigate the complex network of governmental and social service systems that facilitate this transition and, as a result, sometimes return to criminal activity despite their strong desire to do otherwise.

Now, a new resource for helping to coordinate the resources to assist ex-offenders as they begin reintegrating into society  has been introduced by the Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs at Rutgers University–Camden . With funding from the Nicholson Foundation, the program is replicating in Camden the effective Opportunity Reconnect Center operating out of Essex County College in Newark.

The new enterprise, dubbed Opportunity Reconnect–Camden, seeks to provide many of the services parolees need as they undertake their re-entry journey. These services may be as fundamental as tracking down birth certificates so the returnees can obtain a photo-ID drivers’ license, or as profound as counseling them on longtime occupational goals and helping them apply for college loans to jump-start their academic careers. All of the services are critical to help parolees find new and productive roles in society.

Operating out of a building at 1812 Federal Street recently purchased by the Volunteers of America, Opportunity Reconnect–Camden will be a one-stop center that brings together a host of social services under one roof.

It’s all about access, says Joseph Cassisi, a program coordinator at the Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs at Rutgers–Camden. “What we’re doing here is based on information from the ‘Governor’s Strategy for Safe Streets and Neighborhoods,’ a report that presented a blueprint for helping recently released prisoners navigate among a lot of different service providers,” he says.

The 2007 report from Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s office warned that unless former convicts can obtain jobs, successfully reunite with their families, and obtain treatment for substance abuse and mental-health problems, the majority will return to prison within three years.

Some do so within six months.

In Camden, Cassisi notes, the picture is sobering. About 65 percent of the city’s adult offenders, many with violent crimes in their past, will be re-arrested within five years of being released from prison.

 As one way of guaranteeing better outcomes, the governor’s study suggested centralizing government agencies and community-based programs in one venue, linking returnees to the services they need in a convenient and cost-effective way.

“We’re not looking to fund new services, rather to coordinate existing services,” says Cassisi, who is very familiar with the four-year-old Opportunity Reconnect at Essex County College.

Under that northern New Jersey program, multiple government agencies and community groups provide one-stop “shopping” for such critical services as welfare, Medicaid, workforce preparation, housing, mentoring and education.

Hoping to build on that model, Cassisi says that the Rutgers–Camden re-entry program joins forces with the Camden County Board of Social Services, Camden County College, and the Camden County One-Stop Employment Center, among other entities. These partners will place staff at the Federal Street headquarters to meet one-on-one with the ex-cons.

Other partners not located at the site have agreed to provide enhanced services to clients the center refers to them.

“We expect a wide spectrum of backgrounds among those who come to see us. Some will have a high school or GED degree and will be interested in pursuing college education opportunities, others will need adult basic skills such as GED classes and literacy training,” Cassisi says.

Classes in English for speakers of other languages (ESL) are also on the agenda.

Rutgers students working with the Senator Walter Rand Institute will interview ex-prisoners who come through the doors. Camden County College has agreed to convene an ad hoc committee to study the educational needs of the ex-offenders, identify gaps, and marshal available resources, Cassisi adds.

The Nicholson Foundation is a North Jersey-based nonprofit that supports efforts dealing with substance abuse, juvenile justice, criminal justice and offender re-entry. When the Rand Institute convened meetings last fall to discuss launching the local center, the foundation came through with a $120,000 grant running from April 1, 2009, to March 31, 2010.

In Cassisi, the Rutgers–Camden public policy institute found a community corrections professional with more than three decades of experience, much of it devoted to helping young people and adults find their way back to productivity after serving time in jail.

For the past 12 years, the project director has worked with the Juvenile Justice Commission as regional manager in the Office of Juvenile Parole and Transitional Services. Earlier, Cassisi was a Cumberland County probation officer. He also has worked for the Intensive Supervision Program of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

The Reconnect Center grew out of work the Rand Institute has done with Camden’s Safer Cities Initiative, a partnership among community agencies; criminal justice agencies on the city, county and state levels; and faith-based organizations.

The initiative collects and analyzes data with an eye toward identifying the nature of violent crime and implementing effective measures to ensure public safety. Encouraging dialogue among the pertinent agencies has been a top priority.

“You could imagine a person who’s coming back after having been away [in prison] for a long time, and all the challenges to be faced: job counseling, substance-abuse counseling, and so on. How do you navigate all these systems that don’t regularly communicate with each other – that was our challenge,” says Tracy Swan, a project manager with the Rand Institute.

The Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs at Rutgers–Camden delivers high-quality, policy-relevant research on public issues that cut across local, regional, national, and global boundaries; timely and meaningful technical assistance to governments and nonprofit organizations in southern New Jersey; neutral convening of stakeholders and citizens; and academic opportunities for faculty and students to connect classroom and scholarly objectives with public service and applied research in a service learning environment.

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