Prisoner Reentry Initiative

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 number of offenders released by the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) has increased 35.9% since 1999. Releases to parole have increased 30.6% over this time period due to mandatory parole. The total number of releases in 2004 was higher than the previous year by 7.6%. Discretionary parole releases were 10.5% higher and mandatory releases to parole were 12.5% higher in 2004. As the number of offenders released into Colorado's communities increases, the immediate need for community re-entry, agency collaboration, innovative employment, and education and training programs also increase.

To assist those offenders being released to communities, the CDOC facilities will provide a number of educational, vocational, transitional, and life skills programs and services to assist with a successful re-entry.

This effort will serve 200 non-violent offenders returning to the Denver Metro Area for community corrections or parole placement. Of the 24 CDOC facilities, 4 facilities have been identified to ensure 200 offenders participate and complete pre-release programming and participate in community services upon release. The flexibility of this effort also ensures other CDOC facilities may be used to fulfill the intent of this grant in the event of a significant CDOC population shift. The initial CDOC facilities identified to participate in this grant are the Denver Women's Correctional Facility, the Sterling Correctional Facility, the Colorado Correctional Center, and the Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center.

Maintaining thorough and accurate databases will be the key to tracking performance measures and ultimately, the success of this project. The database will be used as a communication mechanism between pre-release and post-release of offender data, as well as a research tool to analyze outcomes and performance measures.

CA/NCF