Alabama Director of Bureau of Pardons and Paroles Cam Ward made a special presentation at the onset of a featured workshop to highlight how Alabama is shifting its focus to reentry programs and recidivism reduction, capped by its participation in Reentry 2030, an initiative led by the Correctional Leaders Association, The Council of State Governments Justice Center, and JustLeadershipUSA. Director Ward serves as an advisor for Reentry 2030. Director Ward’s comments were the springboard for a workshop delivered by three experts titled “Implementing the New Face of Reentry: Alabama PREP Center” at the American Probation and Parole Association’s annual conference in Indianapolis this summer.
The workshop presenters were Rebecca Bensema, Assistant Director for Reentry, Alabama Department of Pardons and Paroles; Lakrystal Love, PREP Center Program Director, GEO Reentry Services; and LaShanda Hails, Director of Pardons and Paroles Programs, JF Ingram State Technical College. David Burch, Divisional Vice President of GEO Continuum of Care and In-Prison Treatment, moderated the workshop.
The Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles oversees more than 44,000 individuals in 67 counties via 62 field offices. The PREP Center, the focus on the APPA workshop, was an innovative initiative to transform and retrofit a former prison that once housed hundreds of inmates into a center for reentry programming. At this center, GEO Reentry was selected to create and deliver the cognitive behavioral curriculum and facilitate on-site health services for participants. To supplement treatment for participants, the state also engaged Ingram State Technical College to deliver technical training for participants so they could earn certifications in many vocational areas, such as forklift, tree trimming, fiber optic, food and beverage and more. This combination of treatment and technical training is designed to stabilize individuals as they return to the community, help them with decision making, and importantly, connect them with jobs so they can support themselves.
The presenters highlighted the challenges Alabama faced leading up to the decision to establish the PREP Center, including prison facilities that were at 168% of capacity, a recidivism rate of more than 30%, and significant opioid addiction issues leading to criminal behavior.
The goals for PREP Center were also discussed, and include:
- 90-day program for participants
- Change criminal thinking patterns through treatment
- Enhance job skills and employment opportunities upon release
- Reentry and rehabilitation services for probationers/parolees
- Incarceration diversion as a response to violation
- Programming outside Alabama DOC general prison population
For more information about the PREP Center, watch this video.
Finally, the presenters discussed results to date at the PREP Center, including six program graduations over the last two years. As more participants are referred to the program since its implementation, so too have the number of graduates. From just 10 graduates in the first couple of graduations, the most recent graduation saw 56 individuals graduate. Eventually, the program is slated to manage more than 200 individuals. As a testament to the potential for this program, through May 2024, none of the program graduates had recidivated when released to the community and almost 6 in 10 have steady work.