Recommendation 2:
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Texas should ensure the funding and recruitment of qualified and committed staff inside units to provide education and treatment services. As a recruitment tool, the State should create a student loan forgiveness program for students willing to work in criminal justice services. The fields of education, social work, and counseling should be targeted, and students should be reimbursed in increments after periods of sustained employment while they work in the criminal justice system.
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Texas should create performance measures for all education and treatment programs. The State should utilize performance-tracking computer technology, like the CAPER database used by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to track contractors’ adherence to policy standards. The State could enlist universities with courses in social science research to assist with program evaluations and data analysis at no cost.
Essentially, it is important that intermittent quality control checks be made to evaluate education and treatment programs; this will prevent obvious problems with program administration from being overlooked and ultimately undermining the goals of the programs. In addition to performance-tracking technology, the State could also develop a client and staff feedback survey. Staff and client feedback is the simplest method of evaluating programmatic progress and can improve participants’ investment in the process when they know their feedback is valued.
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Texas should standardize a therapeutic culture within TDCJ’s Parole District Reentry Centers – where the Texas Workforce Commission’s Project RIO employment services are provided – and it should enhance the services they offer.
The Parole Division’s District Reentry Centers (DRCs) provide cognitive intervention, pre-employment assistance, victim impact classes, anger management classes, and substance abuse education. Approximately 12% of people served by DRCs are there voluntarily, while 88% use services in tandem with parole visits.
To begin standardizing a therapeutic culture in DRCs, the Parole Division should provide staff trainings on cultural sensitivity towards stigmatized clients, and it should develop value-based mission statements for DRC staff. These mission statements should have at their foundation an acknowledgment of rehabilitation and the preservation of public safety.
The State should also evaluate the current use of funding that, as per the Workforce Investment Act, is allocated towards Project RIO (Reintegration of Offenders). Project RIO provides a link between education, training, and employment during incarceration with employment, training, and education after release. Based on the State’s evaluation (which should include a review of the Project RIO-based report written by Texas State University in 2007), it should identify how to enhance funding utilization and, in turn, the quality and provision of services.
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Texas should implement programs and services in communities to which high concentrations of re-entering men and women return, and it should provide government agencies with the tools and incentives necessary to more effectively aid these neighborhoods. People in prison eventually return to the very same communities from which they came. To reduce the likelihood of their returning to prison, they must be offered both new opportunities to succeed and new skills in the areas of cognitive thinking, education, social interaction/communication, and employment. Similarly, law enforcement and local governments must provide these neighborhoods with the protection, social infrastructure, and economic development opportunities necessary to promote success for individuals and families.