The NGA Prisoner Reentry Policy Academy Round Two works with five states in an effort to help governors and other state policymakers develop and implement statewide prisoner reentry strategies that reduce recidivism rates by improving access to key services and supports. The five states participating in the second round of the academy are Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington. The first round of the academy worked with seven states: Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Support for academy comes from the JEHT Foundation.

Through the academy, states assembled interdisciplinary reentry policy teams comprised of representatives from the Governor's office and key state agencies, such as corrections, public safety, health and human services, welfare, workforce, and housing. These teams are responsible for assessing the reentry process within their state, identifying major service gaps and other barriers, examining relevant state data on prisoner reentry trends, and developing and implementing a strategic plan. State teams have had the opportunity to participate in an in-state policy workshop. As the academy progresses, the teams will attend a policy academy meeting that brings together all five states and participate in a "learning lab" on performance measurement.

In designing the academy, one of NGA's objectives was to help states take advantage of and build on other large-scale reentry initiatives. To that end, NGA works closely with other organizations currently engaged in reentry initiatives, including Urban Institute, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Corrections, Council of State Governments, Family Justice, and Women's Prison Association.

All five states recognize prisoner reentry as a larger "public safety" problem rather than just a corrections problem. As such, they already have existing programs designed to ease an offender's reentry into society. Instead of developing entirely new programs and structures the states are looking to use the academy to advance their work and improve inter-agency coordination.

Several common themes have thus far emerged among the states participating in the second round of the academy. These themes include:

• Performance Measurement—States are looking to measure outcomes beyond just recidivism. The academy states are also interested in measures such as job placement and retention, job quality, housing stability, drug treatment completion, and community involvement. These interim measures should give a more complete picture of what is working and what needs improvement.
• Executive Orders—Like Rhode Island and Virginia from the first round of the academy, several states in the second round are looking to formalize their reentry structure and collegiality through an executive order. Though most states already have MOUs among several agencies involved in the reentry process, an executive order would add further structure and better emphasize the Governors' commitment to improving reentry.
• Building on the Role of Families—In recognition of the fact that the release of an individual from prison will likely directly affect family members, the second round states are looking to integrate families into release planning. Some states have release coordinators meet with family members prior to release in order to not only explain their role and what to expect, but also to address fears or concerns of those family members.
• Adoption of Evidence-Based Practices—All five states in the second round of the academy are looking to better integrate evidence-based practices into their reentry programming. The states are eager to learn what works best and to direct their limited resources towards those programs that are most likely to improve outcomes. The academy states are especially interested in learning how participation in multiple programs may impact recidivism.
• Targeting Modest Outcomes—Research has indicated that even in successful programs, reductions in recidivism are not as big as we would like, and do not last for as long as we would like. Most successful programs, in fact, reduce recidivism by 5-15%. The academy states have recognized this and while they are encouraged by the potential reductions in recidivism, are also working to set realistic expectations among policy decision makers.
• Special Populations—The academy states have all cited difficulties in dealing with specialized populations, including juveniles and sex offenders. Special populations require different approaches in order to improve outcomes while both returning offenders to society and protecting public safety.
• Leveraging Faith- and Community-Based Organizations—Several of the states are looking to build upon the work already being done in the community in order to provide returning offenders with a continuity of care and services. These efforts range from creating databases of organizations providing services to returning offenders to actually providing grants and other supports to those community organizations. In cases where a relationship may already exist between the state and an organization, the states are examining ways to expand or further leverage those services.
• Challenges of Unique Rural and Tribal Issues—Several of the academy states have large sparsely populated regions or tribal lands that make it difficult to provide services. In rural areas it is often difficult for a returning offender to attend drug treatment or to fulfill other conditions of their release, which may in turn lead to their relocation to a more urban area which, while offering the necessary services, may mean separation from family, jobs, and other positive supports.

The five participating states will have the opportunity to discuss these common themes and challenges at the academy meeting, to be held summer 2007. The results of those discussions and the progress of the participating states will be reported on the NGA web site at www.nga.org/Center. Findings from the first round of the academy are discussed in detail in the Improving Prisoner Reentry Through Strategic Policy Innovations issue brief.