Re-entry Project for Offenders with Special Needs
Program Overview
The mission of the Re-entry Project for Offenders with Special Needs (RPOSN) is to provide pre-release planning and targeted care coordination post-release for prisoners with special needs to ensure a seamless transition to the community. Special needs populations include the mentally ill, the medically fragile and the developmentally disabled. An Aftercare Plan is developed that meets each offender's individual needs in collaboration with the facility treatment team, Parole Agent, family members and service providers in the community. This plan addresses needs related to housing, mental health, substance abuse, employment, physical health, links to entitlements and additional community supports.
This project relies on a unique model of using a single coordination point for implementation of a statewide system. This system allows for consistency across the state and emphasizes the importance of interagency communication and cooperation. The role of targeted care coordination within this model is integral, as it builds collaborative relationships and serves as a neutral broker, navigating the complex systems involved and bridging the communication gap. The result is that fewer offenders with special needs return to prison, creating safer communities, fewer victims and financial savings.
2020 Program Highlights
The Re-entry Program for Offenders with Special Needs (RPOSN) continues to improve public safety by linking paroled offenders with critical resources that enable quick transitions to stable living situations in the community and ensuring individual treatment needs are met.
In fiscal year 2020, the Offenders with Special Needs program served over 1300 offenders including 810 new referrals and yielding 452 successful community transitions and demonstrating a 71% success rate. Key factors to this success include a high degree of involvement, effective collaboration between agencies, customized service plans, and extensive pre-planning work with each individual participant.
The long term success rate for the initial 2347 mentally ill cases was 65.0%. 35.0% were returned to prison within three years for new sentences (14.4%) or technical rule violations (20.7%). These figures compare very favorably to BASELINE outcomes from 1998, which showed 50.0% returned to prison within three years for new sentences (16.2%) or technical rule violations (33.8%). Additionally, this program enables many offenders who would not have paroled without the program to safely transition to the community.
