Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2006, $1,800,000)
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.
PRI will assist the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in ten critical needs; 1) consolidate and better coordinate assessment processes and uniformity of assessment instruments; 2) better integrate assessment findings into personalized service plans; 3) improve inmate participation and commitment in implementing a personalized life plan; 4) expand accessibility of assessment, life plan development and supporting services to underserved inmates and parolees; 5) reduce barriers and create incentives for inmate/parolee participation in existing programs; 6) improve linkages between programs within CDCR, parole programs, and community-based service providers; 7) simplify communication and coordination processes amongst collaborating partners; 8) provide an opportunity to pilot, test, and refine a collaborative model with evidence-based practices, innovative strategies, and written protocols for potential replication statewide; 9) expand community-based resources to service to inmates and parolees; and 10) incorporate additional program-related data into CDCR's data collection and analysis system.
CA/NCF