Throughout the fall, GEO Reentry Services, in partnership with correctional agencies across the country, hosts transition celebrations for probationers and parolees who have completed GEO Reentry’s intensive reentry programs.
The programs are designed to help probationers and parolees successfully reenter their communities without falling back into criminal activity. Toward this goal, GEO Reentry Services requires participants to undergo behavioral therapy designed to target the root of criminal behavior and participate in life skills classes that include GED and college prep, parenting classes and anger management.
Recently, the Luzerne County Day Reporting Center, located in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, hosted a transition celebration, which was profiled in two newspapers—the Times Leader and The Citizens’ Voice. Fifty-eight probationers graduated from the program in the Nov. 18 ceremony.
Luzerne County Judge Jennifer Rogers was the night’s keynote speaker telling the graduates, “I ask you, what is 11-18-14? For you, it’s a date, a number to play in the lottery or a new beginning. It’s a date of promise.”
Among the graduates to complete the six-month program were two men, including an Army veteran, who both said alcohol consumption led to criminal charges, and a woman arrested for her fourth retail theft who subsequently lost custody of her daughter. Now, the woman told the Citizen’s Voice that she’s clean, employed and has earned daily visits with her daughter.
Another transition celebration, held by the Monterey County Day Reporting Center, was also recently featured in a local Spanish-language news report. Twenty-two participants graduated from the Monterey Country DRC, located in Salinas, California.
The Monterey DRC opened in 2009 in response to the California Public Safety Realignment law, and requires participants to complete a cognitive behavioral program developed to reduce recidivism and change criminal behavior.
Finally, the Stockton Day Reporting Center was also featured in a recent news report in The Record newspaper and in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Inside CDCR for an open house held at the center. The DRC is located in Stockton, California. As the news report notes, last year, the California State Association of Counties considered San Joaquin County among those using “best practices” in implementing the shift of certain felony offenders from state responsibility to county courts, jails and probation departments.
Read more about GEO Reentry’s approach to non-residential reentry.