Reducing recidivism is a phrase meaning cutting down the number of ex-offenders who decide to return to a life of crime.

The Sikeston, Missouri-based Missouri Bootheel Regional Consortium (MBRC) gathered a group of incarceration specialists Thursday for a "town hall" meeting via Zoom to share approaches and solutions to successful assimilation back into society.

Problem

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), 10,000 formerly incarcerated men and women are released from state and federal prisons each week.

More than 650,000 ex-offenders are released yearly, reports DOJ, with approximately two-thirds likely to be rearrested within three years of release.

Solutions

Lorene Armstrong, a reentry coordinator for the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Missouri, said the key is providing resources to those about to go back into society.

"For those men who are fathers, we aid them with parenting skills while they're still inside, so they can help the mother," Armstrong said, adding the Mississippi County prison also partners with the Urban League to line up employer interviews for offenders two months prior to release.

As a result, she said, sometimes the men have jobs lined up when freed.

"The SEMO Food Bank comes in monthly to sign men up for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), so they'll not be a financial burden to their families," she added.

Armstrong also touted a 12-week certified horticultural apprenticeship program at Southeast Correctional in partnership with Missouri's Office of Workforce Development agency, noting one former offender got a job in Sikeston after completing the program.

Daniel Martinez, a district administrator in probation and parole in Caruthersville, Missouri, said "re-entry is a process, not a program, and there is no end to it," adding his role is to "provide hope where there is none."

Martinez said newly freed offenders have immediate financial hurdles the moment they leave prison walls.

"They have to pay for court costs, restitution, supervision, for electronic monitoring and sometimes for sex-offender or domestic-violence programs," he said, adding success should be measured by more than simply not going back to jail.

"Success is finding employment, a suitable home and gain a measure of self-sufficiency," Martinez said.

"Our county, Pemiscot County, has the highest poverty rate in the State of Missouri and up to 45% of the population do not have a high school degree," Martinez said, noting a notably high percentage of residents have part-time seasonal work where people are paid "under the table."

Martinez said his office has established productive reentry relationships with a career center in Kennett, Missouri, and with Southeast Missouri State University.

"We also have a Zoom course on responsible thinking," he added.

"For our office, even though we are faced with great obstacles (in Pemiscot County), we have one of, if not the lowest, recidivism rates in the Southeast region," Martinez said, adding, "the days of sending men back (to prison) are over."

Martinez said reentry is an issue impacting the entire community, and asked the Zoom participants to consider the following question: "Are you going to assist ex-offenders in being law-abiding and productive members of the community or will you turn your back and allow them to go back to previous behaviors and prison?"

The MBRC, which organized the virtual session, operates in a five-county region: Scott, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot and Dunklin.