The Importance of Reentry

by Richard Fox

I truly believe that reentry is vital to a person’s success after leaving prison—but I also believe it must begin while someone is still incarcerated.

When a person comes to prison, no one wants to believe they can become institutionalized. But you can’t live in a place like this for a long period of time without it becoming a part of you. The way the system is set up, once you are locked up, you stay there until you are released. If that release comes and you haven’t learned anything—about yourself, about responsibility, about life—your chances of success are already greatly reduced.

The current reentry plan in the Alabama Department of Corrections doesn’t truly begin until someone is close to parole or about to be released. Even then, it mostly focuses on what a person can’t do: don’t return to old behaviors, don’t drink or use drugs, don’t associate with the wrong people. It also emphasizes obligations—register here, pay fines, don’t miss appointments with your parole officer.

What’s missing is preparation.

Long before someone comes up for parole or release, they should be working. They should be learning a work ethic, gaining job skills, attending ABE classes or trade school if education is needed, and learning basic life skills. Many people in prison don’t know how to budget money, set up a bank account, pay bills, fill out a job application, or present themselves confidently in an interview.

In other words, they are being taught how to get out, but not how to stay out.

That is why organizations like On The Way Home, and other like-minded programs, are so important. They give people something the system often does not: a goal, a plan, and real support. They help returning citizens understand what success looks like and give them the confidence to ask for help when they hit a roadblock.

Many people are incarcerated for decades. When they are locked up, their life essentially stops—but the world keeps moving forward. So when someone finally comes home, it feels like entering an entirely different world than the one they left.

I left the streets in 1990. That is the world I remember. But that world no longer exists.

That is how important reentry is to me.