California Programs Helps People On Parole To Function In Society
Heard on Morning Edition by Elissa Nadworny
May 2, 2019  

A re-entry program in San Bernardino, Calif., for released offenders is like a bridge between the world of corrections and the world of social services. The program helps people on parole transition.

The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and a big part of that is re-offenders. One way to get those numbers down is to give people on parole the tools they need to function in society. In San Bernardino, Calif., there is a promising effort to do just that. Here's NPR's Elissa Nadworny.

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What happened during my first visit to a prison since being released from one
Washington Post by Jason Razaian
3/26/19

On my latest trip to the Bay Area, I did something a bit different from what I usually do when I visit the area in which I grew up: I went to prison.

I had the opportunity to meet with inmates at San Quentin State Prison, the California penitentiary that sits on the southeastern edge of San Rafael, the city I called home for my first 33 years.
I had driven past San Quentin thousands of times. As a boy at Marin Country Day School, I looked out across the bay to see the prison’s sand-colored walls just across the water. During my childhood, my dad, his sister and a cousin all had retail businesses in an outdoor shopping mall less than a quarter of a mile from the prison.

This, though, was the first time I was going inside. It was my first experience at a prison since being released from Evin in Iran, which was also eerily close to my home in Tehran.
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No Place to Call Home
BPI & Roosevelt University: Policy Research Collaborative : 2018
Click here to find out more about the collaboration

​EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For individuals with criminal records, finding a place to live in Chicago can be extremely challenging.
Through interviews with 81 individuals with criminal records, this study shows how the presence of a
criminal record creates barriers for individuals on the private housing rental market regardless of the
individual’s age or the age of the individual’s record.
Participants were asked to sketch on a map where they think they could find a place to live. This
report juxtaposes their answers with information about where they have experienced rental rejection
in the past. The presence of a criminal record can multiply other forms of disadvantage, deepening
racial, class, and gender divides. By discriminating against individuals with criminal records, landlords

not only undermine individuals’ attempts to build stable lives, but also reproduce and multiply large-
scale social inequities.

Nationally, 95% of state prisoners will be released from prison at some point, while an estimated one
in three Americans has a criminal record.

In Chicago alone, approximately 11,000 individuals return
from Illinois prisons each year, so the challenges experienced by people with criminal records are
widespread.

Moreover, in Illinois, about 48% of individuals released from prison will return within
three years—a figure that reveals the pressing need for improved reentry opportunities and
supports.

Housing, in particular, comprises a crucial component of successful reentry—a key
building block that promotes steady employment, fosters mental and physical health, supports
individuals in their recovery from substance abuse, and provides the other advantages of stable
shelter that are vital to basic human wellbeing.

No Place to Call Home proposes policy solutions to help overcome systemic discrimination against
renters with criminal records and mitigate the ripple effects of that discrimination. Through a
combination of reforms, this report proposes a pathway to expand housing access to those with
criminal records in order to make Chicago and other cities more equitable and hospitable places for
all residents to call home. This study was approved by the Roosevelt University Institutional Review
Board: IRB No. 2018-028.

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