Journal of the Institute

Transitional Accountability Plan

    One of the significant strategies undertaken by the steering committee is the establishment of a TAP. The TAP is part of a pre-release planning process that begins early, creates an offender-specific case management team, assigns responsibility, includes family and significant others, identifies assets and liabilities and gets information to the right people at the right time. The TAP has the following features:

   A Tangible, Collaborative Product: The development of the TAP involves input from a variety of stakeholders, including prison staff, the offender, the releasing authority, probation and parole officers, human services providers, victims and neighborhood and community organizations. The TAP describes actions that must occur to prepare offenders from prison to the community, and defines terms and conditions for their releases. It also specifies the supervision and services offenders will experience, and describes eventual discharge to aftercare upon successful completion of supervision.

    Structured Around A Target Release Date:  The TAP is the offender’s gameplan to addressing the challenges of his or her re-entry, but is not a guarantee. The TAP establishes strong expectations; as the offender achieves elements of the plan and maintain good behavior, he or she is released on the targeted release date.

   Formal Agreement: The TAP defines roles and responsibilities for all of the involved stakeholders, including the offender and staff, the releasing authority, community, family, victims and partnering state agencies.

How The Process Works

The Missouri Re-Entry Process begins when an offender enters a Reception and Diagnostic Center, where assessments, interviews and other types of information gathering is conducted, much of it from case material entered in the offender’s Pre-Sentence Investigation. The offender’s presumptive release date is established, and assessments done in the areas of Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Education, Vocation and Medical are performed. The assessments help to identify the offender’s assets and liabilities, which are entered into the TAP.

   When the offender is transferred from the Reception and Diagnostic Center to a mainline correctional institution, his/her Case Management Team is formed. The Case Management Team consists of the offender and can include caseworkers, institutional parole officers, custody staff, substance abuse and mental health counselors, education staff, medical staff, and the offender’s family. The Case Management Team utilizes the TAP to enter such information as programs entered and time frames for completion, evaluation and re-evaluation of needs, and parole hearings.

    When the offender is within six months of release date, he/she is moved into a THU. A new Case Management Team is formed, and the connection to community service providers and state agencies on the outside is established. The TAP continues to be the offender’s roadmap, and it is continually updated and re-evaluated. Issues that are addressed include:

• 
  Education
  
• 
  ID, birth certificate, Veteran’s Administration benefits
  
• 
  Mental Health and continuity of care
  
• 
  Substance Abuse and continuity of care
  
• 
  Medical
  
• 
  Employment
  
• 
  Housing
  
• 
  Employability Skills/Life Skills
  
• 
  Child related issues
  
• 
  Transportation
  
• 
  Insurance
  
• 
  Resource availability through use of community resource website
  
• 
  Healthy recreation
  
• 
  P&P orientation
  
• 
  Mentors/sponsorship
  
• 
  Family issues
  
• 
  Spiritual services
  
• 
  Pre-release programming
  
• 
  Impact of Crime on Victims Classes
  
• 
  Voter rights
  

When the offender is released to field supervision, his/her Case Management Team while incarcerated, also known as the Internal TAP team, becomes the External Transition Team. The External Transition Team consists of the field parole officer and a community mentor. In the field, the following issues are emphasized:

• 
  Access the TAP, supporting versus establishing
  
• 
  Violation matrix and accomplishment
  
• 
  Identify needs not identified at the institution (housing, for example)
  
• 
  Better communication
  
• 
  Orientation with families
  
• 
  Special conditions parallel with TAP
  
• 
  Less contact with parole officer based on accomplishments
  
• 
  Early discharge to Social Service agencies
  

The three phases of MRP administered by the Case Management Team may include any of the following entities:

• 
  Prison Staff
  
• 
  P&P Offices/Supervision Authorities
  
• 
  Community Agencies
  
• 
  Service Providers
  
• 
  Victims
  
• 
  Offender Families/Significant Others
  
• 
  Human Service Agencies
  
• 
  Volunteer/Faith Based Organizations
  

The TAP sets offender-specific goals that are measurable, realistic, time-focused and regularly monitored and revised. It also defines clear outcomes and actions to be taken by each party. The TAP describes how the plan will be implemented, defines how the Case Management Team will respond to poor behavior and violations and focuses on strengths and weaknesses.

Partnerships

Perhaps the most appealing feature of the Missouri Re-Entry Process is the cooperation and partnership between six government agencies in addressing the challenge of offenders returning to communities.

Governmental Partners: "After all is said and done there is no such thing as imagining change. You lead change or you follow it." This was a surprise remark by Peter Drucker on a panel at the conclusion of an international conference.

Re-Entry Partners: What TO DO:

• 
  Have the full support from the state agency director and clear delegation of his or her authority.
  
• 
  Keep other department heads informed and invested.
  
• 
  Be data driven.
  
• 
  Accept only senior decision-makers from partner agencies on the steering team.
  
• 
  Have a steering team leader that is a "boundary spanner," has rank, commons sense, personality, patience, persistence, thick skin, an open mind and a sense of humor.
  
• 
  Use a professional facilitator.
  

Re-Entry Partners: What NOT TO DO:

• 
  Tolerate mediocrity, indifference, inconsistent participation, or nonprofessional conflict among steering team members; replace them if necessary.
  
• 
  Rely exclusively or even primarily on national data.
  
• 
  Underestimate resistance.
  
• 
  Overestimate resistance.
  
• 
  Wait for the "right time" to get started.
  
• 
  Take on “World Hunger”
  
• 
  Promise what you cannot deliver.
  

Closing
Building a collaborative team is Little League play, while building a collaborative system is a real challenge. Missouri is building a collaboration-based offender reentry system that will make a difference in communities across the state.

Is There A Correctional Role In Family Reunification?