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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:21 pm
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Results for supported housing
3 results foundAuthor: Willis, Matthew Title: Supported Housing for Prisoners Returning to the Community: A Review of the Literature Summary: Commissioned by Corrections Victoria to inform its future strategies for delivering housing support strategies to people leaving the prison system, this report presents a literature that builds on two earlier reviews conducted in 2010 and 2013. Those earlier reviews identified a range of models and approaches to delivering housing support that represented the key elements of good and promising practice. In the period since 2013 new literature has become available that builds on this evidence base, reasserting some of the earlier findings, adding clarity to others, and expanding into new considerations. Several recent studies have reinforced the need to provide housing assistance for people leaving prison. Interviews with police detainees showed that nearly one quarter had been homeless or experiencing housing stress in the month before being arrested. A study by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute emphasised the role of demographic factors in contributing to homelessness, with 42 percent of homeless people across Australia being found in just 10 percent of Australian regions. The demographic factors that contribute to homelessness tend to be the same as those that contribute to engagement with the criminal justice system and there are substantial cross-overs between homeless and correctional populations. A number of other recent studies have highlighted the value of meeting the need for housing support. Studies conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) have shown that the costs of even resource intensive housing assistance are substantially less the cost of imprisonment and harms resulting from reoffending. Other studies have reinforced earlier findings on the association between housing stability and reductions in recidivism, with former prisoners in stable housing much less likely to reoffend than those in circumstances of homelessness or unstable accommodation. While research has shown all program elements used in aftercare programs for ex-prisoners have the potential to be effective, including housing components together with aftercare support enhanced ex-prisoner's chances of successfully reintegrating with the community. Consistent with the risk principle of correctional programming, housingrelated services produced the most effective outcomes, in terms of reduced offending and order revocations, for medium- and high-risk offenders. Despite the demonstrated needs and value of providing housing assistance to released prisoners, recent evidence points to the likelihood of community resistance to establishing transitional or other support housing. A United States (US) survey of attitudes towards re-entry initiatives found a moderate degree of public support for the provision of housing assistance to offenders. This support diminished rapidly when the assistance was intended for serious or repeat offenders, or when the hypothetical notion of a housing facility being established in the respondent's own neighbourhood was raised. The study found very little public support for transitional housing for violent and sex offenders. Models of housing support identified in the literature included models with differing degrees of control or choice by clients. Custodial housing applications are most applicable for people with severe mental illness who require strict controls, limited or absent choice, and housing that is tied directly to treatment. The terms supportive housing and supported housing tend to be used interchangeably in the literature. Attempts to establish different definitions of the terms have tended to place supportive housing in the realm of rehabilitation, with clients being allowed increasing degrees of control and choice as they transition through different levels of supervision. Conversely, supported housing tends to be used more for approaches focused on recovery in which clients live independently and exercise choice in regard to the range of flexible and individualised supported services available to them. However, not only is the terminology often used interchangeably, different models are not considered mutually exclusive, and some programs will often a blend of supportive and supported housing, sometimes including emergency crisis accommodation and transitional housing in their mix of services. Evaluations of supportive and supported housing programs have shown they have a potential to deliver positive outcomes for clients, including physical and financial security, greater social inclusion, greater feelings of stability and control and increased well-being. These evaluations and related discussions of housing models emphasise their application to psychiatric populations and care should be taken in assessing the applicability of any given approach to other vulnerable populations, including offenders. In Australia, two dominant models of supportive housing have emerged. The Common Ground model is based on congregated housing with onsite support and social services. It has been implemented through an alliance of housing providers across five states, including Victoria. Scattered-site housing models utilise geographically dispersed accommodation with clients receiving support services through outreach from allied organisations. Neither of these models should be considered as fixed or rigid, with many different approaches and designs being implemented within these broad models. One of the characterising features of both models is the flexible and individualised support provided to clients. The nature and intensity of the support can vary widely across programs and between individuals, but the most effective models appear to be those that allow clients to determine the services they receive. One of the important areas of development in the recent literature is the emergence of difference financial models, including social impact investment approaches. Often aligned with strategies such as Justice Reinvestment, social impact investments have taken forms such as Social Impact Bonds and Payment by Results methods. Each of these strategies aims to deliver social reforms and interventions without substantial up-front costs or risks to government, through investment arrangements with commercial or philanthropic organisations. Social impact investments potentially represent a way for government to deliver costly housing initiatives without impacting on other areas of need or government expenditure. A range of different housing support models are in place across Australia, each aiming to provide stable and secure accommodation for offender clients at high risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability. In many ways the Australian implementations have similarities with those implemented in the US and UK, even though the elements and approaches vary between programs and locations. Quite different approaches are in place in some European countries, resulting from the different ways offenders are managed in those countries. Practices in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands emphasise rehabilitation and normalisation, aiming to have the experiences of life in prison parallel those in the community as much as possible. People leaving prison in those countries have typically had substantial opportunities to maintain family relationships and maintain or secure accommodation well before they are released. There remains little clear evidence of the application or effectiveness of different housing models and approaches to vulnerable groups within correctional populations. The evidence shows that sex offenders, particularly sexually violent offenders with strict limitations on their residence and movements are at heightened risk of homelessness on release from prison. International experience shows that attempts to establish housing options for sexually violent offenders are likely to meet with substantial resistance from communities as well as local authorities. Little attention appears to have been paid in the literature to the housing support needs of Indigenous Australians. Overall, a review of the recent literature on supported housing for correctional populations highlights the importance of flexible and individually oriented approaches to delivering housing assistance. Good practice in housing support focuses on individual needs and the provision of appropriate degrees and types of individual choice and control. Holistic and integrated wraparound services delivered through collaborative, multi-agency approaches that span the range of individual support and treatment needs remain an integral part of good practice housing support interventions. Details: Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2016. 41p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 6, 2017 at: http://assets.justice.vic.gov.au/corrections/resources/19acadf4-576b-4fd8-9158-b3c3248a6c77/literature_review_prisoner_housing_model.pdf Year: 2016 Country: International URL: http://assets.justice.vic.gov.au/corrections/resources/19acadf4-576b-4fd8-9158-b3c3248a6c77/literature_review_prisoner_housing_model.pdf Shelf Number: 141353 Keywords: HousingPrisoner ReentrySupported Housing |
Author: Great Britain. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons Title: Resettlement Provision for Adult Offenders: Accommodation and education, training and employment Summary: In April 2015 far reaching changes will be introduced to 'transform' the way that offenders are rehabilitated and to reduce the risk they reoffend. Offenders serving sentences of less than one year will be subject to statutory supervision. Support and supervision of low- and medium-risk offenders will pass from the probation service to voluntary and private sector providers commissioned through regional Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC). Higher-risk offenders will be supervised by a new national probation service. Offenders serving short sentences and those with less than three months to serve should be held in ‘resettlement prisons’, in or linked to the area in which they will be released. Resettlement services should be organised on a 'through the gate' basis, making greater use of mentors than at present and with providers paid in part according to the outcomes they achieve in reducing reoffending. The primary aim of this report is to inform the development of these new services by examining the effectiveness of existing arrangements to help offenders obtain suitable and sustainable accommodation and education, training and employment (ETE) on release as part of wider resettlement provision. The report follows a cohort of 80 offenders from prison through the gate into the community and identifies their accommodation and occupation status shortly before release, on release and one and six months later. The offenders in this study were chosen because they were already subject to statutory supervision on release as they were serving sentences of one year or more. We are confident that in the key areas there is a direct parallel with provision for offenders serving shorter sentences, although care should be taken in interpreting the results. It is important to recognise where there are differences, not least to ensure that the requirements of offenders serving longer sentences do not get overlooked in the pressure to establish the new arrangements. Many previous studies have highlighted the importance of accommodation and ETE to reducing reoffending. The Social Exclusion Report of 2002 indentified them as two of the critical resettlement pathways that have been the focus for much effort since, and the ‘Surveying Prisoners Crime Reduction’ survey a decade later unsurprisingly came to similar conclusions. Offenders themselves consistently tell us during inspections how important having somewhere secure and stable to live, and something constructive to do, is to staying out of trouble after they are released. The findings of this report are striking. Most importantly, it absolutely confirms the central importance of an offender’s family and friends to their successful rehabilitation. Of course, sometimes an offender’s family may be the victims of their crime and sometimes they may be a negative influence that contributes to their offending behaviour – we found a small number of examples of this in this inspection. However, overwhelmingly, this inspection confirmed our view that an offender’s family are the most effective resettlement agency. More than half the offenders in our cohort returned home or moved in with family and friends on release, even if this was only a temporary measure. The few who had a job on release had mainly arranged this with the help of previous employers, family or friends. Helping offenders maintain or restore relationships with their family and friends, where this is appropriate, should be central to the resettlement effort. But too often, these relationships are seen simply as a matter of visits which may be increased or reduced according to an offender’s behaviour. We found no evidence that families were involved in sentence planning for instance, even when an offender said they were relying on them for support after release. Too little account was taken of whether initial arrangements were sustainable and what continuing support might be needed. Of the 48 offenders who moved into their own home or with family and friends on release, a fifth had needed to move in with different family/friends when we checked on them after six months. What should happen, where possible, is resettlement work which helps the offender and his or her family to maintain or rebuild relationships; an assessment of any offer of support; and, where appropriate, involvement of the family in plans for release. We are concerned that work on family relationships that will continue to be provided, if at all, directly by the prison will not be integrated with work done by resettlement service providers. In contrast to the support provided by offenders’ family and friends, our findings in this report reinforce the criticism we have previously made about formal offender management arrangements in prisons1. We found that contact between offenders and offender supervisors or managers varied considerably and even where there was good contact, this had little impact on accommodation and ETE outcomes at the point of release, although contacts were more effective post-release. Sentence planning and oversight were weak and resettlement work in prisons was insufficiently informed either by an individual assessment of the offender concerned or a strategic assessment of what opportunities would be available to offenders on release, with input from relevant organisations and employers. Information sharing across prison departments was poor overall but better in open prisons and those preparing long-term offenders for release. It will be important that those prisons designated as ‘resettlement prisons’ in the new arrangements urgently begin to create the ‘whole prison’ approach to resettlement that is too often lacking at present. It would certainly help address these problems if prisons had a better understanding of current accommodation and ETE outcomes. At present they rely heavily on self-reported information from offenders at the point of release with no follow-up on longer-term accommodation and ETE outcomes, which as our findings demonstrate, is an ineffective way of judging the effectiveness of resettlement services. Offenders who posed a high risk of harm were placed in approved premises where their risk could be appropriately managed. Offenders expressed concerns to us about the adverse influence of other residents of approved premises, and two of the nine offenders who went to approved premises on release were subsequently recalled, but others had progressed six months later. Shortages of affordable rented accommodation, references, a lack of resources to pay deposits and rent in advance, and the practical problems of arranging accommodation from inside prison, meant that rented accommodation in the private or social housing sectors was not an option for any of the offenders we followed. Often offenders were able to move in with family/friends on release, even if just as a temporary measure, but the three in our sample who did not have this option were forced to rely on emergency shelter immediately after release. Access to affordable rented accommodation will be a significant challenge for new providers and it is likely that there will need to be an expansion of rent deposit and guarantee schemes and other provision if it is to be met. Some offenders in our cohort such as young adults who had been in care as ‘looked after children’ and women offenders who took over the sole care of their children after release had entitlements to housing that needed to be identified and met. Of course, finding and sustaining accommodation is not simply a question of paying the rent but also of having the skills necessary to live independently. For those who might struggle to live independently because of their age and lack of maturity, such as young adults, or older offenders who had become institutionalised by long sentences, some form of supported accommodation was necessary if they were not placed in approved premises. Details: London: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, 2014. 68p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 6, 2016 at: https://socialwelfare.bl.uk/subject-areas/services-activity/resettlement/criminaljusticejointinspection/1693032014_Resettlement-thematic-for-print-Sept-2014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://socialwelfare.bl.uk/subject-areas/services-activity/resettlement/criminaljusticejointinspection/1693032014_Resettlement-thematic-for-print-Sept-2014.pdf Shelf Number: 141360 Keywords: Ex-offender EmploymentOffender ResettlementPrisoner ReentrySupported Housing |
Author: Hawken, Angela Title: Graduated Reintegration: Smoothing the Transition from Prison to Community Summary: High recidivism rates - some 50 percent of released prisoners return within three years - constitute a major factor driving both high crime rates and high incarceration rates. The unduly sudden process of prisoner release contributes to recidivism by confronting releasees with unnecessarily difficult problems of subsistence and adjustment. Graduated Reintegration addresses that problem by making the release process less sudden. This paper offers a proposal to pilot and evaluate Graduated Reintegration, which would move prisoners from their cells to supported housing before what otherwise would have been their release dates. Participants would be subject to prison-like rules (curfew, position monitoring, drug testing, no use of cash, directed job search) enforced by a system of swift, certain, and fair rewards and sanctions. Compliance and achievement would be rewarded with increased freedom, and noncompliance sanctioned with temporarily increase restriction. Graduated Reintegration aims to transform the releasee continuously rather than suddenly from a prisoner in a cell to an ordinary resident with an apartment and a job. Details: Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, Hamilton Project, 2016. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Policy Proposal 2016-03: Accessed September 14, 2017 at: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/es_20161021_graduated_reintegration_policy_proposal.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/es_20161021_graduated_reintegration_policy_proposal.pdf Shelf Number: 147241 Keywords: Prisoner Reentry Recidivism Reintegration Supported Housing |