Category: Serving 250,001+ Residents
The Problem
The Boston Re-entry Initiative (BRI) was created in response to a resurgence in violent crime across Boston’s “hot-spots,” or high-crime neighborhoods. An analysis led by Police Commissioner Evans showed that ex-offenders returning to high-crime neighborhoods from the Suffolk County House of Correction contributed significantly to the spike in crime. Fragmentation of roles and responsibilities among criminal justice agencies made it difficult for authorities to mount an effective response.
In 2000, Boston experienced a significant 13 percent increase in violent and firearm crime across the city. An analysis conducted by the police and sheriff found that recidivism by ex-offenders contributed to a significant portion of those new violent incidents. Also, recently released offenders consistently appeared in incident reports, and moreover, veteran intelligence officers were seeing the names of the same individuals who had been identified as impact players during the early 90s, one of Boston’s most violent periods. The overwhelming majority of offenders were coming back to their communities from the Suffolk County House of Correction (SCHOC) and some from the state Department of Correction (DOC).
A few offenders were serving probationary sentences; a small number were on parole; and most were under no ongoing legal sanction. Weak state laws related to post-release treatment of violent offenders exacerbate the problem of recidivism. Massachusetts does not require post-release supervision, resulting in little focused attention or resources on promoting successful community reentry among offenders. The need for an intensive, collaborative reentry program was evident.
The Solution
As part of Boston Strategy II, the Boston Reentry Initiative (BRI) was developed in partnership with faithbased, community and criminal justice agencies. The BRI was designed to reduce violent offenses by focusing on those most serious and highest-risk returning offenders. Its objectives included reducing offender anonymity with a highly collaborative criminal justice partnership supported by credible community leaders.
Imprisonment often results in long-term economic and social consequences for the offenders themselves, including disproportionate unemployment, poverty and low educational attainment. Most offenders are released without sufficient support in their attempt to reintegrate into the community. Indeed, many returning offenders felt that there were few options available to them besides returning to a life of crime.
Through BRI, inmates are offered tangible opportunities to make positive choices with faithbased and community mentor support; in addition, they are warned simultaneously of serious consequences of reoffending. After hearing this message from a panel of representatives, inmates are met by mentors to review their post-release accountability plans. Individual support continues post-release. Intensive surveillance, swift arrest and fast-track prosecution by law enforcement usually results for non-compliant reoffenders.
Planning for the BRI began in the spring of 2000. The primary goal of the BRI was to reduce violent offending and victimization by serious and violent offenders across Boston neighborhoods. Its specific objectives, premised on three strategic ideas, are:
- 1. Focusing efforts and resources on the most serious returning offenders.
2. Creating a joint public safety and social service approach involving an unprecedented partnership between law enforcement, government agencies, community providers and faith-based organizations.
3. Providing intervention services to address significant hurdles faced by offenders returning from confinement, which were grounded in research and past experience of several model programs run by the BPD and SCHOC.
In anticipation of the results, police defined success as both assisting these high-risk ex-offenders’ transition successfully into their communities as well as apprehending those offenders who do commit criminal actions sooner, and hopefully at less serious offense levels.
Success also is defined from a public safety perspective. Given the offense histories of the chosen participants, police realized that it would be unrealistic to expect a full turnaround for the majority. However, it was anticipated that the program could: engage at least a few in positive changes; reduce offenses to minor offenses; as well as swiftly rearrest reoffenders. This would be a success for the city and police.
Based on much collective experience and research, an existing hypothesis is that repeat offenders are the driving force behind violent crime, and furthermore, that only a small portion of these offenders is responsible for leveraging a large number of violent incidents, through ongoing intensive retaliations and other violent behavior. Police anticipated that by focusing intently on the small number of those most at-risk for committing violent offenses, they would have a significant impact on the overall rate and number of violent crimes.
Evaluation
Results to date are very promising, with a significant majority of active program participants maintaining a positive change, while non-compliant offenders have met swift rearrest. Individual successes further illustrate the strong positive impact of the BRI for individuals who otherwise lacked viable alternatives.
Police see a promising correlation between participation and changes in participants’ postrelease criminal profiles. Also there is a reduction in violent crime trends in participants’ home communities.
Criminals typically would be expected, based on their criminal histories, to continue to offend, absent any form of post-release intervention. Yet police have seen a significant difference in criminal offending between those with Impact Player status (inmates who have rejected offers of support and assistance), as compared to those with some level of participation in the program. Analysis revealed that of the 184 released offenders chosen for the initiative between April 2001 and March 2003, 20 percent of participants refused to comply and earned Impact Player status. Of these, 62 percent offended after release, and most of those arrests (60 percent) were for serious and violent offenses.
By contrast, 48 percent actively participated in the program, and among this group, 40 percent reoffended, and the majority of these arrests were on minor, non-violent matters. Of the 59 who moderately participated, 51 percent remained arrestfree post-release, and exactly half of those rearrested were for non-violent minor offenses. Rearrests further point to quick detection and swift action by law enforcement, showing offenders that we are delivering on pledges made at the panel presentation.
Crime data show an overall 4 percent decrease in violent crime within the violent crime hot-spots that are home to most BRI participants between the period prior to the initiative (January 1, 2000-May 20, 2001) and post-initiative (January 1, 2002-May 20, 2003). During the same time, Boston crime, in general, was on the rise.
The chief lesson of the Boston Reentry Initiative is the power of collaboration — that traditional and non-traditional entities working in concert — can have positive effects beyond the mere sum of their individual powers and authorities.
