Insights & Information

The vast majority of people released from prison return home. A new paper by Jeremy Travis, Ronald Davis, and Sarah Lawrence published by the Harvard Kennedy School and the National Institute of Justice explores the role of the police in facilitating successful community reentry. In Exploring the Role of the Police in Prisoner Reentry, authors note that the police have traditionally played little part in such transitions, both because they have viewed their role as limited to the surveillance for violations of release terms or new crimes and because of mistrust between law enforcement and community providers. The authors hold that police departments, particularly in urban areas, have a major role to play in community reentry, in part because of high recidivism rates and the concentration of poor, high-crime neighborhoods. To read about such efforts in Detroit, click here.