Lack of access to medication, employment, housing, food, social supports, and health care can produce poor outcomes for many people who find themselves caught up in a revolving cycle of jail admissions and releases. Comprehensive and collaborative transition planning for individuals with mental and substance use disorders can disrupt this cycle and improve individual- and system-level outcomes.

8.3.1 Second Chance Act

In 2008, the Second Chance Act was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law and reauthorized in 2018. This act works to reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for people returning to the community post-incarceration. The Second Chance Act provides opportunities for recently incarcerated people to access housing, employment, vocational training, and education programming. The Second Chance Act aims at preventing recidivism by providing people opportunities to obtain stability in the community. A few examples of Second Chance Act funding include:

• Connect to housing services
• Complete vocational training programs for employment
• Obtain essential materials (i.e., uniforms, tools, etc.) for employment
• Education programming for a license or certification
• Required physicals for employment
• Transportation for employment (i.e., bus pass)
• Childcare for reentering the workforce

8.3.2 Risk-Need-Responsivity Model

Researchers have spent years formulating the principles of effective intervention strategies for correctional populations. Many researchers support the risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model, which states that the risk and needs of the incarcerated individual should determine the strategies appropriate for addressing the individual’s criminogenic factors before and after release.

According to Don Andrews and James Bonta, leading criminal justice scholars, the RNR model is based on the following three principles

• Risk principle: Match the level of service to the person under supervision’s risk of reoffending, based on static factors (e.g., age at first arrest, history of arrest, current age) and dynamic factors (e.g., substance abuse, antisocial attitudes). Higher-risk people under supervision should receive more intensive intervention.
• Need principle: Assess criminogenic needs and target them in treatment. High-risk people under supervision should receive intensive treatment, while low-risk people under supervision should receive minimal or no treatment.
• Responsivity principle: Maximize the person under supervision’s ability to learn from a rehabilitative intervention by providing cognitive behavioral treatment and tailoring the intervention to the learning style, motivation, abilities, and strengths of the person under supervision.

8.3.3 First Step Act

In 2018, Congress passed the First Step Act, which was intended to help reduce prison populations and decrease reoffending that would cause people to return from prison. The Act made a number of changes that reduced sentences, including providing an opportunity for incarcerated people to petition the U.S. Courts for compassionate release from custody. Under the Act , a sentencing Judge can reduce the person’s term of imprisonment if there are “extraordinary and compelling reasons.”

Before the passage of the First Step Act, the BOP could refuse to file motions to reduce sentencing. Now, however, defense counsel can make the request for compassionate release directly (Sady & Daily, 2019).