Reentry Courts

Beginning in the late 1990s, criminal justice agencies, politicians, and the general public began to express growing concern about high rates of ex-offender recidivism. While probation and parole agencies have commonly provided supervision and even some social services to individuals recently released from correctional facilities, high recidivism rates began to shed light on the need for new approaches. In the past decade, a renewed interest in prisoner reentry has resulted in a variety of changes to correctional programming, post-release supervision strategies, and the availability of community-based programs. Reentry courts constitute only one of many programs intended to assist former inmates as they transition back into the community. Generally, reentry courts are designed to offer formerly incarcerated individuals social services and support while also providing additional supervision in the post-release period.

Reentry courts are a type of specialized court. Specialized courts, such as drug courts, domestic violence courts, and gun courts, were created to reduce burgeoning caseloads by diverting some offenders from the traditional court system and to experiment with new strategies for certain types of offenders. Although reentry courts were created to supplement the traditional justice system, they do differ from other specialized courts. Most specialized courts enroll participants before they have been adjudicated; conversely, reentry courts enroll participants after they have been adjudicated and served prison sentences.

The guidelines for enrolling recently released individuals in reentry courts vary widely. Reentry court programs often target particular individuals, such as those who are under parole supervision, those who have been classified as at high risk for reoffending, or those who previously committed certain types of offenses. Reentry court participation may be voluntary and associated with some type of incentive, or it may be a requirement of release from prison. All reentry courts have a geographic focus, targeting individuals who are returning to a specific geographic area, such as a neighborhood, city, or county.

Although the program structure varies greatly among different reentry courts, participants are generally required to attend reentry court sessions that may be scheduled on a biweekly to bimonthly basis (some programs employ a phasing-out strategy in which participants are required to attend less often as they demonstrate success). Typically, all court participants are present during each session, and a reentry court judge asks each participant to report any successes and obstacles related to his or her reentry. Participants are praised for successes by the judge and other court officials involved in the proceedings. When a participant specifies a particular challenge—perhaps related to housing, employment, or substance abuse—the reentry court judge or other court officials often refer the individual to a particular social service provider. If a participant declines to identify an ongoing problem during court, the reentry court judge likely already knows about the issue as a result of discussions with parole officers or other case management staff involved in the reentry court. As in the drug court model, there are both punishments for noncompliance and rewards for progress. This stands in contrast to traditional forms of post-incarceration release supervision, which relies primarily on punishment for noncompliance.

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