Reentry Through the Lens of the Returning Individual

SECTION CONTENTS:

• Section Home Page
• Summary: Reentry Through the Lens of the Returning Individual
• Description of Facilitated Group Discussion Participants
• Theme: Housing
• Theme: Family Reunification
• Theme: Employment
• Theme: Healthcare
• Theme: Mental Health
• Theme: Substance Use
• Theme: Community Integration

Reentry Through the Lens of the Returning Individual presents the results of guided discussions with people who were formerly incarcerated.

This web-based resource shares personal experiences and insights from returning individuals about their transition related to community reintegration, securing housing, mental health services, substance use disorder treatment, employment, healthcare, family reunification support. The conversations, a unique partnership between American Institutes for Research (AIR) and JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), featured a series of facilitated group discussions across the United States that occurred between August and October 2022.

The resource highlights experiences and insights from men and women who are returning to their communities and lifts the importance and value of engaging these individuals to inform improvements in policy, reentry services, and practice. For each topic, we describe the key questions posed to the groups. We then present a series of themes that emerged from the comments shared by the participants. Each theme (a bulleted statement in bold) is supported by direct quotes from the participants. We identified themes if multiple individuals raised the same observation or concern, and present quotes from the participants that illustrate these themes. Each quote is from a single participant, but that characterization does not imply that we are highlighting a concern that only one individual raised during the conversations.

View the video below to hear from facilitated group participants about how their reentry was impacted across seven common themes heard throughout the discussions.