Journal of the Institute

Transition From Prison To Community Initiatives Symposium

Gary B. Kempker^*
The Criminal Justice System in America, and particularly in Missouri, has faced many challenges over the years. One of the basic challenges that we have faced is the Criminal Justice System itself. While we often talk about the Criminal Justice System, I would argue that it is not a system at all. If you look at Webster’s Dictionary and other sources you will find a definition that basically states a system is a number of parts that function together for a common effort. It has been my experience that in Criminal Justice each discipline tends to focus on its own initiatives and there appears to be little communication between the disciplines. This is a challenge that must be addressed for the future of Criminal Justice.

One real advantage to better communication between the disciplines is the opportunity to take advantage of failures and successes experienced by the other disciplines. Upon coming to Corrections I learned many things about Corrections that would have been very helpful had I known that information while I worked in law enforcement and in the Prosecutor’s Office.

It is clear that the Criminal Justice System is evolutionary in nature. Since the beginning of modern Criminal Justice our system has continued to evolve and change over time. It has never stopped in the past and there is no reason to believe that it will not continue to evolve for the future. The challenge for Criminal Justice and for Corrections is to ensure that we use our past experience and knowledge to make that evolution positive. Much of the drive for change over the years is the result of public demand and in some cases the public’s dissatisfaction with the practices of the past. I have always believed that in the end it is the public who decides the type of Criminal Justice System we will have in this country. We are currently at a point where the public, as well as government, are challenging our approach to Corrections and Criminal Justice. A clear message has been sent that the building era for Corrections is over and that the public is demonstrating a preference for additional efforts towards rehabilitation rather than long sentencing practices, particularly as it relates to non-violent offenders.

I believe that one of the opportunities to learn from the experiences of other disciplines is present in what we have observed in law enforcement with Community Policing over the last decade or so. Community Policing represented the first major change in law enforcement approaches in more than 50 years. It has totally changed the way law enforcement services have been delivered in this country. Although it is a somewhat different approach, many of the basic principles developed in Community Policing were not necessarily new. As a matter of fact, many date back to 1829 when Sir Robert Peel experimented with the London Metropolitan Police System. Throughout history, many of the changes brought about by Peel and others were the result of the public outcry and their dissatisfaction in the way things were being done at the time.

Community Policing created tremendous change in policing in this country. In many ways those same conditions and opportunities exist within Corrections. As I mentioned, the prison building era is over. The legislature, the Governor’s Office and the public have sent a message that building a new prison each year at a 130 million dollars with annual operating costs of 25-30 million dollars is unaffordable. Much of the public opinion has changed from the philosophy of “lock them up” to one that expects us to reintegrate offenders back into society and address crime issues rather than merely addressing symptoms. We have a unique opportunity to learn from the mistakes and successes of other disciplines and make our mark on the evolution of Corrections in this millennium a positive one.

What I hope to do is compare some of the strategies that were successful in Community Policing and discuss how some of those same strategies and approaches may relate to our business of changing our role in public safety to effectively implement re-entry strategies for offenders into the community.

One of the first lessons learned in Community Policing is that we have to adopt re-entry as a philosophy not as a program. Programs typically have a beginning and an ending point. Very often these programs are tied to specific funding and once the funding changes or disappears the program ends. Re-entry will require a long term commitment that cannot be tied to a specific funding source or a specific beginning and end. I believe that re-entry, much like Community Policing, requires an evolution over many years and it is not possible to “flip a switch” and have success.

There is also a clear lesson from Community Policing that the philosophy has to be reflected in every division, every section and every policy of the agency. Individuals at every level and in every job classification have to be educated on the principles of re-entry and asked to reinforce that commitment daily.

The philosophy for the Department is re-entry. The tools that we currently have available are initiatives such as the Serious and Violent Offender Re-Entry Initiative (SVORI), the Transition from Prison to Community Initiative (TPCI), our local Transitional Accountability Plan (TAP) and other efforts that compliment that philosophy.

Another important lesson from Community Policing is that we have to make some admissions upfront. Those admissions to ourselves and to the public have to deal with what we can do and what we cannot do. It is clear that we cannot address the issue of successful offender re-entry alone. We must have the help of other agencies and the help of the community to be successful. For many years individuals in Criminal Justice sent a message to the public that crime is our problem, that we can handle it and that we do not need assistance from the community or others. The truth is we cannot handle that mission alone.

We have to ask ourselves if we can really expect a single probation and parole officer, with a caseload in some instances of more than 70 clients, to make a difference by themselves in offenders’ lives. This new approach, I believe, requires that we look at ourselves as re-entry managers with resources and partnerships that help offenders accomplish their mission of re-entering society. The bottom line is we need partners.

There are partners available to us if we ask for the assistance. The Faith Based Community, community groups, state agencies and others are willing to help if we merely make the admission that we need help and ask for their assistance. Partnerships are one of the basic fundamental building blocks of Community Policing. It is also a fundamental building block for re-entry of offenders into the community.

It is clear to me that citizens expect government agencies to work together, avoid duplication and make the best of their tax dollars. Individual efforts by agencies rarely accomplish this and there are almost always overlaps, redundancy and conflict. Taxpayers expect us to work with our communities and to work at their level, not at our level. There are no limits to the partnerships that can be established once we admit that we need help and we look to those who can assist us in our efforts.

In dealing with policing, Sir Robert Peel said, “The police should strive to maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police.”¹¹³ We need to take a broader view of that statement and encourage communities to be part of the solution to protecting their community. To do that communities have to be educated that they share the problem and they must be part of the solution. When we look at the public’s expectation of us today, we are in the same spot that law enforcement was in fifteen years ago or so. Our contribution to public safety can be safer communities and better government through re-entry partnerships.

With Community Policing there had to be a change in the role of police officers. The same is true for us. There has to be a change in the role of corrections professionals for re-entry to work. The police had to learn to do more than react to a call and put a band-aid on it. There has to be a transition to street corner criminology that addresses the causes of crime through problem solving. Our challenge is the same. We have to look at the sources of failures by those under our supervision and address those failures with our partners. We have to change the thinking and give more authority and responsibility to frontline individuals who can make the best call and develop the best approach to those problems.

The key principal to Community Policing success is problem solving. One of the problem solving tools used by law enforcement is called the S.A.R.A. Model. It includes:

Scanning - discovering the problem;

Analysis - learning all you can about the problem;

Response - developing goals that are custom made; and

Assessment - evaluating the results.

This is not at all unlike the Transitional Accountability Plan developed by our Department. Some of the same problem solving tools are used in that process. All those involved in re-entry have to be given the ownership and authority to be problem solvers. Obviously the differences in jurisdictions and settings require different solutions for different problems. A cookie cutter approach to re-entry will not be successful. We have to encourage our employees at the local level to develop problem solving skills and to communicate with managers and administrators on what tools they need to solve their problems. It became clear at the Symposium in Warrensburg that many of the problems vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, in one location a discussion made it very clear that transportation is a major problem for that jurisdiction. Within a very short period of time we learned that the Department of Mental Health has the same issue in the same jurisdiction. Rather than individual approaches to this problem, it is clear that partnerships are possible and that transportation can possibly be a major issue to achieve success in that area of the state. That is the approach we need to take for the future.

Supervisors have to become enablers that provide assistance and guidance to problems solving efforts and partnerships. I also believe that we have to re-evaluate what our definition of success is. Sir Robert¹¹⁴ Peel said “The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with the problem.” When an offender goes back to prison not only has the offender failed, we have failed. I am not sure that we as an organization have recognized those failures we are responsible for. Do we as an organization care that we are failing? We should. I realize that many of our successes may be difficult to quantify and fully appreciate. The reality is we often do not see the successes. They are the individuals that do not come back to police, that are not prosecuted by prosecutors, do not stand before Judges and do not enter prisons. The ones we see are the failures. It is very easy to develop an attitude that everybody fails because you never see the successes. We have to identify successes and make sure that we are aware that they are there. The best result is to have offenders out there working, supporting their families and contributing to their communities. I have mentioned partnerships on many occasions and it is clear we cannot sha