How the re-entry service fails the most vulnerable

The re-entry services in Estonia provide supportive housing and mentoring to people released from prison. A more detailed description of these services is found here, but in general, such programs aim to help people return to society, and in the long run, reduce recidivism, make society safer, and save on criminal justice costs. However, my colleagues and I evaluated these services, and unfortunately, we still have a long way to go to reach these aims. Here are four central ‘wrongs’ we identified during the evaluation.

The majority of people who need re-entry services struggle with substance use disorder, yet the majority of services are not designed to address this issue. Whether you consider addiction to be a brain disease or a psychiatric disorder, it is a significant influence on a person, and without proper help, recovering can be more challenging. Mainly when you are released from prison, you have no place to go, no people supporting you, but only structural barriers and a great deal of debt from court proceedings. Most people I interviewed said communication is often tricky when specialists working with them have no basic understanding of what addiction is. Then, judgemental and stigmatizing attitudes are easy to come. Instead of adequate help and support, some were treated with blame and dehumanizing messages. If we genuinely want to help people, we need to respect them as human beings and provide them with the help they actually need. Though here, in Estonia, it is anyhow problematic to receive adequate support when it comes to addiction, however, we have some promising practices. The most promising results (with helping people with substance use disorder) came when lived-experience counselors or support persons provided services.

Services are designed to exclude vulnerable groups. This was particularly evident with youth and people with special needs and mental health concerns; most often, they could not participate or finish the program since their special needs were not taken into account. Same structural barriers were present for other vulnerable groups, too, for instance — mothers. There are currently no supportive housing services for mothers released from prison that help with re-entry to society while providing them the possibility to be with their children. This means they usually have to figure out other ways to cope as they are not willing to live without their family (anymore). And it is not just mothers, women in general — over 90% of people using these services are men. And it is not because women do not want or need such services; it is more because these services are designed for a ‘stereotypical’ client. Offering services yet excluding the most vulnerable people begs the question — why are we developing and funding programs that do not help those who need it the most?

Most people who need services, are rarely able to access them. Besides the issue of services being designed for a ‘stereotypical’ client, interviews showed many other barriers to access. The main reason people who actually would have wanted to participate was the stigma and misconceptions surrounding the services. People explained how these services are known and discussed in prison:

You will be forced into religion there.

You have to pay to receive these services.

The housing service is a slave camp where one is forced to do heavy physical work without getting paid. 

The supporting staff takes advantage of people (e.g., a support person had caused more debt to a client).

Though I cannot state that such instances have never occurred, most people using these services claimed these statements to be false or inaccurate. In the end, people working in prison should provide information to people incarcerated. Particularly, as many did not even know there are such possibilities. The lack of accurate knowledge about these services was more visible in women, probably also explaining why they make up less than 10 percent of service users. The lack of knowledge and misconceptions are not so difficult to overcome.

Local governments do not want to help people previously incarcerated. Though this was more visible in smaller regions, it causes some additional hardships for people in need of help. To give an instance, a person released from prison had no place to stay for the night. He did not know there are any supportive housing services (which could have been already arranged prior to release), so he went to ask from his local government. Government official did not want to help him and told that unfortunately there is nothing they can do. He left and slept at a barn that night. Furthermore, he felt like there is no point in asking for help ever again since he is not considered ‘deserving’ of help. The unfortunate thing is that every local government in Estonia must ensure a place to stay for people in need. This is provided by law, and by no means can an official stipulate they cannot do anything. They can. And they actually must. Even more so, they could have at least provide the information about the housing meant specifically for people released from prison. This is not a unique story in the sense of local governments stigmatizing or neglecting people in need. However, it is saddening to know that people get paid for helping those in need, and they just don’t.

Some key recommendations to ensure services provided fulfill their aims: 

• Funders should include conditions in initial funding contracts about the need to continuously develop and evaluate program’s effectiveness and should oversee themselves that such is done.
• Occasionally, a separate thorough evaluation should be done by an objective third party. 
• People who receive (or who are the target groups) of these services should be included in developing and evaluating activities. 
• Such programs should be made more accessible by both inclusive designing of programs and ensuring relevant information is accessible to all people who may need these services.

Overall, such evaluations can provide valuable input about what is right and what is wrong with interventions and services we provide people. Let’s hope this time the input goes beyond being merely 126 pages of words.

The Estonian Ministry of Justice recently published the report on the effectiveness of the prison release service, unfortunately the full report is in Estonian. The Ministry of Justice did not support or approve the content of this article. The views and thoughts expressed here are the sole responsibility of the Author.

This article first appeared on Medium.