Spotlight Announcement

9/20/2005: New Reentry Policy Briefs from the Urban Institute

A set of new policy briefs released by the Urban Institute explore several facets of prisoner reentry in Illinois, including health, housing, substance abuse treatment, and employment. These four briefs are part of the Institute's ongoing "Returning Home" project, a three-year multi-state study documenting the pathways of prisoner reintegration, examining what factors contribute to a successful or unsuccessful reentry experience, and identifying how those factors can inform policy. The new briefs employ original survey data from Illinois to highlight challenges faced by exiting prisoners and offer suggestions for policymakers and service providers looking to improve the success of pre- and post-release programs.

Returning Home Illinois Policy Briefs:

Research highlights from these briefs include:

  • While 87% of survey respondents* reported participating in a pre-release planning program while in prison, only 9% reported receiving referrals to health services upon release and only 8% reported receiving mental health referrals. Furthermore, respondents who reported themselves to be in "fair" or "poor" health were no more likely to receive referrals than those who reported their health as "excellent" or "good."
  • Only 43% of respondents who reported a drug problem prior to their incarceration reported receiving treatment services while incarcerated. Only 32% of those who received treatment while incarcerated reported receiving treatment after their release.
  • One year after release, only 49% of respondents reported having worked at least one week since their release. Only 28% reported being employed at the time of the interview, and only 24% were employed full time.

*Survey respondents included 400 male prisoners returning to the city of Chicago.

The "Returning Home Illinois" policy briefs are the latest additions to a series of publications based on the Returning Home project research, including: Returning Home: Preliminary Findings from a Pilot Study of Soon-To-Be-Released Prisoners in Maryland, Returning Home: Understanding the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry (Maryland), Baltimore Prisoners' Experiences Returning Home, and Chicago Prisoners' Experiences Returning Home. More documents in the series will be forthcoming as the research project continues.

In addition to Returning Home project, the Institute has published several other documents related to prisoner reentry, including:

For more reentry related publications from the Urban Institute, browse or search the publications section at www.urban.org.

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Public Housing Authorities and Prisoner Re-Entry

A growing number of people are released each year from state prison and local jails; this phenomenon, prisoner reentry, has a significant impact on housing programs administered by PHAs, including public housing, the Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8), and other programs.

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