GEO Reentry Service’s fall transition celebrations are continuing with celebrations in Mendocino, Shasta and Imperial counties, California. The celebrations honor graduates of GEO Reentry’s intensive reentry programs and prepare them for life after community supervision.
The first celebration was on Dec. 9 in Shasta County, where 9 probationers graduated from the Shasta County Day Reporting Center. Then, on Dec. 11, a ceremony was held for the graduates of the Mendocino County Day Reporting Center. Finally, on Dec. 17, the first class of graduates to complete the Imperial County Day Reporting Center, which opened in March 2014, will graduate.
All three centers opened in response to California’s AB 109 legislation, aka Public Safety Realignment, where the responsibility of thousands of prisoners was shifted from the state level to counties. Following the legislation, counties were eager to pursue alternatives to incarceration to combat overcrowding and the high cost of incarceration.
Reentry programming is a smart alternative for individuals at risk of recidivating because it targets changing criminal behavior while teaching participants the necessary life skills to become successful members of their communities.
GEO Reentry Services hosts transition celebrations for graduates because they mark an important time in each participant’s life and are a way to honor the hard work participants have put forth in their own rehabilitation.
GEO Reentry programs require daily check-ins at the DRC, comprehensive behavioral therapy sessions, participation in group meetings and completion of life skills classes like GED, college or job prep, anger management and parenting classes. By the completion of the program, participants have spent, on average, 180 days reporting to the center.
GEO Reentry works with more than a dozen California counties to provide reentry programming and many more counties throughout the United States.
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