Video Transcript: Adult Prison Re-entry Program

Reentry offers every offender, no matter the length of their sentence, help in the transition from prison to their communities, families and neighborhoods. You may be someone with a life sentence, someone with a great deal of time to serve, or just a few years, there's something in the reentry program for each of you.

I was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. I've been incarcerated for 19 years and four months. My sentence was eight years. I was given 43 years, three years. I've been locked up for three and a half years. I have served a 33-and-a-half-year sentence thus far. The reentry program starts from the time you are sentenced to the Virginia Department of Corrections through release to community supervision.

Reentry starts the day you come in. You need to start preparing for your return back to your communities.

You will be involved in every stage of your reentry plan. It all starts with a needs assessment, which is updated yearly along with your home plan, and will be reviewed by a counselor through every stage of reentry. These are questions that are going to be asked of you to determine your needs. If you look at the list of questions, it covers family, mental health, education. Ask questions about your personality, whether or not you're going to need help with housing. This helps to determine what programs you might need and when you will receive them. Some will get into certain programs sooner than others. This will depend on the length of your sentence.

One of the first things that will happen upon your arrival at the institution is orientation. This is when you will hear about reentry and all the programs that are offered. It will also be where you get answers to many questions. You may have very good question.

You will receive information about the reentry savings plan that will be set up for you. This plan helps with the paying of your fines, court costs and if applicable, child support, plus it will afford you some funds in your pocket upon release. Offenders with life terms or lifers are valuable to reentry by being role models, a mentor or the person another offender can come to help them make the right choices.

I was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, which they translate as being 600 years. I had to take a really cold, calculated look at what I had to work with and what my possibilities were. Okay. I think someone that has a life sentence needs to find something they're passionate about, commit to it, try to make that happen. I do consider myself to be a role model, because, like everybody else here, I have opportunities to make the wrong choices, some terribly wrong choices, and I'm choosing not to do that. I consider myself a mentor, because I invest of myself and others to help them achieve their goals. Mentoring is something that a lifer not only can do, but should do. A lifer has an opportunity that no one else does here, to effect a change. Lifers will also have the opportunity to facilitate, or co-facilitate groups and classes such as parenting. substance abuse or Thinking for a Change. Thinking for a Change is a core program throughout everyone's sentence designed to help offenders identify and apply positive ways of thinking. Thinking for change is up because it's made me revamp my whole thought process in order to think for a change. It's like a washing machine, you know, if you don't put your clothes to the whole process, your clothes won't be clean. It changed my whole way of thinking, my whole criminal mind thinking. Since I've been here, I've taken Thinking for a Change now that's been a really, really big help to me. As much as I didn't like it at first, it really has. Thinking for a Change is really a beneficial program that would benefit all of prisoners, thanking for a change help us alleviate from the negativity.

For long term offenders, the Reentry Initiative offers programming and tools that can be used to obtain your goals while incarcerated. These tools can also be applied when released, to fill up my toolbox. I mean, I'm grateful for programs like this. I utilize the programs. If I didn't do the programs, I feel like I would be going setting myself up for a failure. A long-term offender can be very effective in tutoring or co-facilitating programs.

I really think wells with a lot of time are the best candidates for co-facilitating or facilitating programs, because a lot of times the youth look up to them. If you have a trade in a vocation, you could take a leadership position during this time and be an assistant in a vocational class as a role model or mentor, you can influence change in a positive way.

Role model is somebody who's living they self-positive, helping other people. They're positive. I consider myself role model now.

I'm someone that people can look up to now. I'm not ashamed of the person you know, I wouldn't offer myself or my you know, to help someone if I'm just going to lead them in the wrong path.

Being a role model is a personal thing for me. It bothers me to see young men waste their lives. Being a role model means everything.

Reentry is the main focus for offenders with five years or less to serve. The Reentry Program consists of you come in. They teach you how to get ready for society, back into society.

I kept writing to try to get in because I wanted some kind of resources to make sure that I wasn't going to return. I wanted to at least try to do something help myself.

The reentry program has been a big help to me. I've learned a lot of different ways of thinking. The officers and the staff that they have is much more helpful and willing to take a minute out to spend with you and pull you out and you have a lot of one-on-one with the officers, instead of them not trying to talk to you. And when an officer stops me, or counselor comes up to me personally, it makes me feel like a human being, not just like a number. They acknowledge the good things you do, and they let it be known when they see the good things you do, from the start to finish. You know, I'm there for them. The staff is there for them. The Reentry Program is there to help them the system to get the way they need to get to so they don't never have to come back in here ever again.

At this time, counselor meetings will be increased to help support release preparation. Those offenders with significant need for substance abuse treatment will be referred to the cognitive therapeutic community. 28 months before release, Alex, we don't want to admit whether we need a program or not. We may walk out the door. We may say, Yes, we got it. We have it, no matter how much time we do, no matter five years, a year, a month. It doesn't matter. Work opportunities will be offered to help learn positive work habits and employability skills.

We teach the offenders a course that's called surge safe, and what it does is makes the offenders more marketable when they go out into the community. I really feel the offenders are receptive to this program, and they are very excited when they take the test and they pass it, and they're actually very proud to present the certificate to the employers.

Vocational training and apprenticeship programs are designed to provide skills based on realistic employment opportunities.

One of the most challenging things that we deal with is employment. You know, we make sure everybody has resumes. We do the registration online, get them already registered into the workforce center, in other words, taking out all these components that you know they're going to have to do this when they get out anyway. So, while we have the time, let's get it done now.

Oh, when they're released, it will be really important for them to have a job and a skill that's marketable, skills they learn here to be good employees. Got them jobs where they felt comfortable, Department of Corrections, adult basic education and GED preparation are a priority at some institutions. College programs will be available. Women can come get their GED and they make it mandatory, that's a big thing. A lot of these women come in uneducated, and I see them older, and they're trying to really apply themselves, and they're so excited.

I already knew nine times out of 10 when I got out, a lot of my family wouldn't be around anymore, and I would have to find a way of supporting myself. And I knew if I didn't have an education, or if I didn't have some type of program or degrees under my belt, I wouldn't make it.

Computer skills are extremely important to your successful reentry. Classes are provided to help you learn basic computer skills and more advanced training to stay current in today's technology, because I couldn't tell you how to use cell phone, but it teaches you how to use computer, and I know how to use it fluently now. So, stuff like that helped me. The programs have helped me a lot. Through programs offenders will be encouraged to maintain or establish family support systems necessary for reentry. The families are such an important piece evidence and research has shown that if families become involved and are going to be a support to that loved one or significant other coming out, then there's a higher chance of that returning citizen, of being a bigger success.

Visitation is encouraged and video visitation is available to help keep you connected to your family. In intensive reentry preparation, you will be placed in a cognitive community at a facility within a 50-mile radius of your release plan. Your security level will affect what intensive reentry facility you go to. A cognitive community is a community of offenders that are all working towards positive reentry. Here you will be around other offenders, treatment officers and cognitive counselors to help you focus on your future. Cognitive community is an area within the institution that guys are set up for a smooth transition back into society.

Parenting programs like Inside Out dads or moms Inc, along with teaching parenting skills help with maintaining family ties to make that stronger connection with my little girl, she's my world, and I want to go home to her, because I want to be a good mom inside. Our dads has helped me the most because I have a 20 year old daughter, and when I left, she was only one. So, it helped me to communicate with her better, you know, to build a relationship with her better. If we go back, a lot of our situations come from misunderstanding about parenthood. If we don't tighten up our man state and help our children, then ultimately, they'll end up in the same situation. But if we do, we're making it better.

I was very against all of it when I first come here, and I went through the training. Now I'm actually on the structure board, so just work the program, because you get out what you put in, and it's not bad. And this is coming from somebody that didn't want to have anything to do with the program at first, and I'm still here six months later, working the program every single day. Sometimes I don't like it, but just work it because it is beneficial. Just keep an open mind. There are extra benefits at this level of reentry. There will be opportunities to participate in life-skills classes, parenting classes, family seminars and faith-based mentorships. And mentors are important because they're individuals who live and work in the community, and they're going to be aware of what's out there. It can be they're part of their network.

You will also be participating in Thinking for a Change. Booster sessions, programs for substance abuse are available along with peer support groups such as AA and NA, another program which is new that is provided and available to offenders. This is a new program. It's been, I guess, about a year now that we've been using this, cover all kind of things. We go over banking, money management, we do DNV stuff. We work with them on actual resumes, cover letters. We help them do the letter of explanation. We have also where they do securing housing and transportation.

Fortunately, I get to work with everybody that's leaving. So basically, what it's trying to do is, I always call it, jumpstart them back into real life. Resource and Referral is another piece where we have different organizations. It could be OAR and restoration. It could be Virginia cares. It comes in and let them know about different things available. Even Virginia colleges come in, I've taken ready to work, which gets you ready to go to work. Once you go home, you can answer those difficult questions, are you a failing? Yeah, I am, but I'm still a person, and I can do a good job.

If you haven't obtained your social security card, birth certificate or Virginia state identification card from the Department of Motor Vehicles now is an opportunity to do so. For most of our people that you know, driving is the number one thing we all need: to have our license back. If not, we're handicapped. So, we work on what it's going to take to get their license back. In other words, we take the mystery out of it. Then also here, we also have the process, not here, but at the institution where they're now doing the photo IDs again, which really just helps jump start a person once they get out. Senior reentry probation and parole officers will be conducting seminars at the intensive reentry sites to help educate and answer any questions that you might have regarding release. The reason why we started prior to their release is so that we can work on any issues they have prior to them leaving. So, if there is a problematic home plan, if someone is homeless.

Good afternoon. I'm Laura Brown. I'm one of the senior reentry probation officers, one of my primary responsibilities. Be to make sure that you have not just a suitable home plan, but the best home plan that you possibly could come up with. If someone is concerned about a job and what is available for their community, those are things that we want to address. We talk with them about what's going on. Where are they? What do they need?

During these seminars, you will hear about partnerships between the Virginia Department of Corrections, other state agencies and community-based programs, all of whom provide resources and services such as veterans benefits, social security and health services, among others, there is also a work release program through the local jail for qualified offenders after you have successfully completed the intensive Reentry Program. This allows you to work and receive wages. Part of these wages will be applied to your court costs, fines and child support.

Some of the advantages of being able to come out to work are to get ourselves into a more productive lifestyle. We get to pay 15% on our fines each check that we get, and the rest gets put in a hold account for us. Being able to save that money and put it towards my fines will definitely help so I can get my license back and be able to get to work and appointments and things that I need. I love being able to come out to work, you do something that would benefit you. So when you be ready to go back out, you be a new person. And if you're a new person, society is willing to accept you and work with you and help you throughout your life and be as positive as you can and try to work the program to the best you can, because it really, really does help improve.

Look at the program as a positive thing, instead of coming in with a negative attitude. Because being a positive thing, it makes your time go by, Bella, and every day you have something else to do, take your time, utilize it, and it'll help you in the future. You've got to reinvent the wheel. When you come here and go back to before you committed crime, and go dig that person up and apply the program's education, and you see the new person you're going to become, and give it a leave. You know, I mean, I'm doing it.

We utilize the programs, utilize what you do, and I see as time go back, that they do change for the better. You can take control over certain aspects of your life. You can achieve some amazing things in here.

And every day, we are on a mission to better ourselves, not only just for the things we need, but for society, our family, and to prove to the communities out there that even though we made mistakes in the past, we have changed and we can make a difference out there. I love you and I miss you.

Your dedication to change is beneficial in getting back to your community families and back on your feet. Reentry is the vehicle to an improved life where you go from here is limitless.