Partnering eases transition from incarceration to society
*Correction: This article incorrectly lists Dave Murphy as the current interim Director of the Community Corrections division. Saudia Abdullah is the current Director, starting in August 2015 and confirmed by counsel in October 2015.
Each year in Washington state, hundreds of inmates are released from correctional facilities after completing their sentences with $40, a bus ticket, and whatever they had on them upon entering.
They are released into society without any training on how to deal with reintegration or changes in the way we live. Many have served long-term sentences and find they don’t know how to navigate even simple tasks such as the public transportation system.
Unable to get a job or apply for housing due to their felony records, many slip back into their previous criminal lives.
“Most inmates don’t want to go back once they get out,” Carla Lee, deputy chief of staff with King County Prosecuting Attorney, said. “They did their time, paid their services and now they want to get back to their life.”
But it can be very difficult for inmates to do so. Unable to pay bills while in jail, released inmates find themselves facing large debt which they are unable to pay, along with court-related fees and fines because their status as a felon reduces their job possibilities.
King County, along with partners Washington State Department of Corrections and Columbia Legal, are trying to make it easier for inmates to reenter society.
To do so, King County and its partners have a cross-system policy action team to develop new policies and practices. In doing so, they developed the Risk Need Responsively principle (a process that considers individual characteristics when matching offenders to services), to help identify and determine which inmates would pose the greatest risk to themselves upon reentry to society. These are inmates who have stayed within the system for longer periods of time and would have the most trouble upon reentry.
King County now works to develop and identify community partners, evaluate existing policies to determine if they are align with Risk Need Responsively principle, and track inmates with the goal of easing the reentry process. The County identifies community partners who can assist inmates upon their release from prison, such as housing and health providers, or inmates who have been through the system and now serve as a guide to help newly released inmates navigate the outside world.
“When they get out they may have told to go left,” Patty Noble-Desy said. “But they will turn right because that’s what they know and they don’t know how to get where they are suppose to go.”
Noble-Desy is King County’s Recidivism Reduction and Reentry Senior Project Manager. By working with the community, inmates have the resources to help them start out on their feet. When communities are involved, it creates a safer environment because inmates do not have to turn to their old ways to survive, Noble-Desy said.
Educational programs for inmates while they are incarcerated help them transition into society easier upon release.
But it isn’t all about focusing on when inmates leave the prison system. King County is focused on creating programs within the jail that would help inmates learn necessary life skills for their reentry. These programs involve schooling and financial help while inmates are incarcerated.
“We track our programs to see if they are effective or not,” Dave Murphy, current interim division director for Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention’s Community Corrections Division, said. Some of the most effective programs have been enhanced case management and housing vouchers, along with health services provided in jail, which had the best outcome of all programs. Programs are developed to work with Risk Need Responsively, but are also tailored to what the inmates actually need.
“We listen to them to what they want,” Murphy said. Because King County is trying to reduce the amount of people entering jail each year, programs need to be designed with the inmates’ needs and wants in mind, Murphy said. “Each case is different and so our model is changing to fit them individually.”
But more importantly, King County is trying to keep people from being incarcerated in the first place. Currently more than half of the jail and prison population are people who are incarcerated for petty or insignificant crimes. Two-thirds of the population will be released after three days of being booked and will have a permanent criminal record that will bar them from jobs and housing, Murphy said.
To keep the prison population low, King County works with all first responders to assess the scene upon arrival, Noble-Desy said. If they determine the person causing the disruption is not a threat to themselves or others, they are urged to take the suspect to a service center rather than book them immediately.
“It starts well in advance,” Patty Noble-Desy said. “We try to get engaged before they get involved with law enforcement. Sometimes they just need a little help getting back on track.”
With this model, King County hopes to stop “recycling” inmates, or seeing the same people return time after time because they are stuck in a criminal rut.
“With everyone on board, from the Executive to the warden, Washington State Department of Corrections and the community members, we can work together to divert people from jails and get them the help they need,” Murphy said. “This has never happened before.”
Employee News 
What does “Risk Need Responsively” mean? What is the Risk Need Responsively principle? The article mentions is a few times but the three words together do not make sense.