PLY: Mass governor Baker building on the SIB legacy of his predecessor Deval Patrick…a phrase I look forward to hearing much more often in future!
Gov. Baker Sees ‘Something Really Big’ Brewing In Criminal Justice Reform
Colin A. Young – MASS LIVE
…..When Gov. Charlie Baker walked out of an intensive educational program for prison inmates last week, he thought to himself, “why the . . . did it take so long for us to get around to creating this?,” he said Monday morning, inserting a pause where his thoughts may have placed an expletive.
The School of Reentry, run at the Department of Correction’s pre-release center in Roslindale, aims to prepare inmates to re-enter society through education, vocational training, counseling, job preparation and personal development.
With innovative new programs for prisoners and an ongoing analysis of the state’s criminal justice system by the Council on State Governments’ Justice Center, Massachusetts is “on the brink of something really big” as it embarks to reform the criminal justice system, Baker predicted.
Criminal justice reform efforts over the years have typically sought to find balance between being smart on crime and being tough on offenders. The costs of establishing training and rehabilitation programs within the walls of correctional facilities have also long been an impediment to sweeping reform.
In 2014, former Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration signed a pay for success (PFS) contract with Roca, investing $27 million in support services, skills training and job placement that will cost the state nothing unless it succeeds.
The seven-year project will use a form of financing known as social impact bonds that will collect private and philanthropic money to run the program. If an independent evaluator determines that Roca has achieved specific, predetermined outcomes, the state will pay back those grants and loans.
Molly Baldwin, the founder and CEO of Roca, said the risky venture has so far proven to be effective. Roca retained 84 percent of the young people it worked with last fiscal year, and of the young men in the third or fourth years of Roca programming, 87 percent have held a job for six months or longer, 93 percent have no new arrests and 98 percent have no new incarcerations, according to the organization.