Pre-Release Service for Non-Violent Offenders

The Prisoner Reentry Initiative (PRI) is designed to provide funding to state units of government to develop and implement institutional and community corrections-based offender reentry programs. The PRI strengthens urban communities characterized by large numbers of returning, nonviolent prisoners. PRI is designed to reduce recidivism by helping returning inmates find work and assess other critical services in their communities. The PRI supports strategies to deliver pre-release assessments and services, and to develop transition plans in collaboration with other justice and community-based agencies and providers for supervised and non-supervised, nonviolent offenders.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice will create a reentry program that will target state jail felons who are convicted and released of non-violent crimes in Bexar, Dallas, and Harris counties. The program is designed to complement services funded by the U.S. Department of Labor through faith-based/community-based organizations (FB/CBO) in these same areas. The program components will focus on substance abuse, education and employment, cognitive behavioral or other counseling, mental health, mentoring, life skills and transitional planning therapy.

CA/NCF