NEWS RELEASE: Advocacy group endorses justice reform, hosts training for support groups.
“It is heartening to see the intelligent, fact-based discussion about our criminal justice system and sex-crime issues that is taking place,” Robert Kim Combs, Executive Director of Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT), an independent legislative advocacy group dedicated to making communities safer by reducing recidivism, referenced a slurry of news reports, in-depth investigations, scientific studies and criminal justice experts building momentum for pragmatism, sanity, common-sense and therapeutic intervention.
Recent research into two -- what some would call diametrically opposed – inmate transition and community reentry models is scrutinizing ideas about the 'how tos' of empowering ex-offenders to become successful, contributing, self-reliant and law-abiding members of society.
The “Good Life” Model employs strategies for 'restorative justice' with a focus on connecting ex-offenders with job-training, employment opportunities, affordable housing, education, transportation and other critical resources to help them lead successful lives in their communities and is based on the idea that in order to be effective, our justice system needs to build capabilities and strengths in people in order to reduce their risk of re-offending.
The “Containment” Model, which is much more typical in today's mainstream, relies on 'punishment' as a deterrent to future crime. Designed to protect communities by placing a strict controlling cordon of supervised compliance around each ex-offender, this model tends to leave ex-offenders to their own devices, demanding that certain performance standards (ie: housing, employment, payment of fines) be maintained as a condition of release with little or no concern for how the ex-offender will be able to satisfy these criteria, effectively mandating a life-sentence to recidivism.
“I believe we need to combine these two models with a focus on the restoration of lives as the best means of protecting everyone in the community,” Combs elaborated, noting that the United States has the highest documented per-capita rate of incarceration in the world. “Every time someone goes back to prison, it hurts all of us. And not just in the public pocketbook. It destroys what could be productive lives and devastates families.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2010 — about 7% of adults in the U.S. resident population. Additionally, 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or on parole. In total, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2009 — about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.
According to the National Institute for Corrections in 2010, over the past 20 years, Arkansas’s population has increased by slightly more than 10 percent, but the state's prison population has increased by more than 100 percent. More than 1-in-4 Arkansans are either in prison, on parole, probation or somehow otherwise caught-up in 'the system'. Of these, nearly 11,000 are listed on the Arkansas Sex Offender Registry which has grave carry-over consequences to their 11,000 families and those of the nearly 750,000 registrants nationwide.
“Just his past weekend,' Combs continued, “there were substantive articles in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, referencing sources in the Boston Globe, New York Times, Bloomberg News, San Jose Mercury News and others, all addressing strong concerns and grave apprehensions about the powerfully detrimental and completely unintended effects of our current criminal justice system.”
Combs, who worked with Satori Barnes of the U.S. Probation Department and Jeff Spry of City Connections to co-coordinate the “Re-Entry Resource Fair” sponsored by the Central Arkansas Re-Entry Coalition which brought together 37 rehabilitation, housing, training, legal, employment, financial and other support-service providers with 300 people deserving of assistance, said that to forward collaborative initiatives, ATAT is hosting a special program on April 15.
“Training for the Trainers,” being held Sunday, April 15, 2012, 2pm / 4pm, at the main branch of the Little Rock Public Library, 100 N. Rock Street (1st floor, West Room), is facilitated by Mary Sue Molnar, co-founder of the fast-growing group Texas Voices For Reason & Justice.
Among the nation's leading and most outspoken advocates for the reform of sex-crime laws Molnar is a powerful advocate for hands-on activism, cohesive actions and the critical importance fostering systematic change through public education and collaborative networking.
Hosted as a public service by Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT), an independent legislative advocacy group dedicated to making communities safer by reducing recidivism, Molnar's program offers a step-by-step 'participatory' education in the how-tos of starting and networking a state-wide affiliation of support groups. For more info contact Robert Kim Combs, 501-563-2197 or visit www.ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org
Then program is open to the public free of charge, however seating is limited and advance reservations are strongly encouraged. Contact Combs, 501-563-2197 or visit www.ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org for details.
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NEWS RELEASE authored and distributed copyright-free by Christine Beems, editor/publisher gozarks.com, 223 Primrose Lane, Shirley, AR 72153; 501-745-4153 as a public service. Questions about content or distribution may be emailed to gozarks@gmail.com DISCLOSURE: The author is affiliated as a volunteer communications director with ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org Thanks!
