Re-Entry Survey: Abstract
The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) recently developed an anonymous on-line survey to measure re-entry practitioners’ feedback regarding prisoner re-entry challenges in Texas. This survey has allowed TCJC to determine how re-entry practitioners perceive re-entry challenges so that we may provide the Texas Legislature and numerous correlated organizations with information about needs in this field. 234 professionals responded to the on-line survey within a six-week period. They answered questions relating to re-entry program information, barriers to service provision (specifically including basic needs issues, educational issues, employment issues, mental health and substance abuse issues, and life skills education issues), and program evaluation.
TCJC has developed this document to provide the Texas Legislature with valuable and relevant findings to consider during its examination of prisoner re-entry challenges – including during its observations of public hearings, review of testimony, and examination of other expert recommendations regarding possible strategies for meeting prisoner re-entry challenges in Texas.
We also hope that these findings will contribute to conversations among re-entry service providers themselves and among community planners who take an interest in strengthening a social support infrastructure within their local jails and prisons, and within their communities. In order to sustain these infrastructures, Texas must allocate funding towards re-entry resources, create incentives that will attract qualified re-entry professionals into the criminal justice field, and do its best to remove barriers – including in employment, housing, and education – that currently prevent individuals from living responsibly.