LR program for parolees aims to streamline support services

Carrie Raglon (right) of the city of Little Rock and Christine Beems, chairman of the Public Relations Committee of the Central Arkansas Reentry Coalition, talk about a new initiative to help former inmates or homeless people settle into new lives in Little Rock.
Carrie Raglon (right) of the city of Little Rock and Christine Beems, chairman of the Public Relations Committee of the Central Arkansas Reentry Coalition, talk about a new initiative to help former inmates or homeless people settle into new lives in Little Rock.

— Every month more than 100 new parolees are released and return to live in Little Rock.

Dozens of organizations offer help with a portion of the needs that arise when someone is trying to re-enter the community after incarceration, court-ordered rehabilitation or even after being homeless. But navigating through those services, finding the right job training, acquiring a safe apartment or enrolling in mental-health or anger-management services to help promote better decision-making are not easy tasks.

Little Rock officials are hoping a new initiative at the city’s Department of Community Programs, spearheaded by a newly hired re-entry coordinator, will help develop a common marketplace for those services, streamline the process and engage those residents re-entering society to better gauge what skills and interests can be cultivated to keep them from repeating destructive behaviors and returning to prison.

“The community-based programs already in existence bring so much expertise to the table and have such a great relationship with Little Rock already,” said Carrie Raglon, who was hired in mid-November for the new re-entry coordinator position. “A lot of what we are going to do to start is fostering that relationship and getting a standardized process. It will go a long way in helping people find the great services that exist and making sure the right assessments, mentoring and case management occur to give people the best chance of staying out of prison.”

Raglon, 32, comes from a position at the state Department of Community Correction, where she was the program manager for a federal re-entry grant awarded to the department through the federal Second Chance Act.

The grant allowed the department to provide intense support services, including training and assessment to a pilot group of prisoners who were within three to six months of being released. The program provided postrelease support, such as help earning a high school equivalency degree and training for a job interview.

At the end of the grant period, Raglon said, the prisoners in the program had a 17 percent recidivism rate compared with the 25 percent-plus recidivism rate for all prisoners paroled from the Department of Correction in the same time frame.

“I worked with the Arkansas Department of Correction closely during the grant period, and I’d like to bring that relationship into these efforts,” she said. “A big part of this is going to be soliciting partnerships and bringing those partners together for communication.”

The Colt native never thought of leaving the state she’s called home through college and graduate school — she obtained her master’s degree in political science from the University of Arkansas. Her husband is a minister who also grew up in Arkansas.

Raglon has worked for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as a realty manager, dealing with finances, contracts and managing future projects. She thought about going to law school and says she might have been happy for a while, but something called her back to helping the community.

“I couldn’t see myself practicing forever,” she said. “I wanted to do something more connected and more directly with the community. This job seemed to be the perfect fit.”

Dorothy Nayles, director of Little Rock’s Department of Community Programs, said she’s happy to have Raglon on board and eager to get started on implementing the initiative. She told members of the Central Arkansas Reentry Coalition last week that Little Rock should have a program up and running in January and hopes to eventually have a streamlined system with standardized best practices to try to help the most people.

“Many municipalities across the country have developed their own programs and realized that managing these efforts is in the city’s best interest,” she said.

The city has already started at least one pilot program to help parolees. The city’s sidewalk program took 10 nonviolent felony offenders and placed them in a closely mentored program with the Public Works Department to receive training in pouring cement, creating the correct grading and angles for sidewalks, and using some heavy equipment. The program taught conflictresolution skills and emphasized punctuality and reliability in the workplace.

The re-entry program will also start with nonviolent offenders, but Nayles said how the program develops will depend on what the department’s employees learn as the initiative moves forward.

Nayles, her staff and several agencies that contract with the city through its Prevention, Intervention and Treatment programs did a survey of the community and found a few areas of increasing need other than helping parolees adjust, such as helping young people with little education and few job skills transition into productive adulthood.

“It’s to the benefit of the city and the law-abiding citizens to develop an effective program where we minimize the potential for them to fall off the wagon and resort back to crime,” Mayor Mark Stodola said of the re-entry program. “When we asked for the sales tax, we said we would take that tax and look at the real issues in this city. The ability to have people with felony records find gainful employment is something we should be looking at more closely.”

Even though a city may be made up of streets and neighborhoods, Nayles and other city officials believe the city is only as great as its residents.

“This should be seen in a public safety light, but more than that it should be seen as making a worthwhile human capital investment,” she said. “This is an opportunity to have some way to touch the lives of people who have gotten into trouble and helping them find ways to not make the same choices and to be better members of the community where they live.”

City officials have high hopes for the re-entry program. And, while the city’s role will start as a facilitator and a clearinghouse for the streamlined system, Stodola said he’d like Raglon to reach out to area businesses and keep a list of those willing to hire parolees.

“We have an opportunity to maximize the impact we have on those individuals finding gainful, fulfilling employment,” he said. “My hope for this position is that she will be able to reach out to our businesses and employers and have an honest conversation about whether a felony conviction would disqualify these applicants from employment.

“My second hope is that we can get a thorough skills assessment of people re-entering the community and pair those skills they may have learned with gaps employers who are willing to hire felons may have. It’s something that may take some time, but it’s something we should be doing.”

Arkansas, Pages 17 on 12/23/2012

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