The Office of Returning Citizens is meant to be a one-stop shop for a person re-entering society — that includes people coming out of prison, a rehabilitation diversion service or someone whose life was turned down by being formally charged with a crime.
The Baltimore City Council passed the bill Monday.
A handful of city agencies and nonprofits have programs for returning people, but the idea is that this office will centralize and connect everything — including to resources for healthcare, employment, housing and other services.
For bill sponsor Councilmember James Torrence (D-8), the legislation is incredibly personal; he described his mother, Pamela Massenburg, as someone who faced tremendous barriers to education and family sustaining wages once she re-entered society.
“As soon as she got home, she had to be ‘mom’ again,” said Torrence in an interview with WYPR. “So imagine if you didn't have those resources in place, and you're looking for a job, being the childcare, the person rearing children, and making sure that you're there doing right and being responsible to them — but (also) finding time for yourself.”
According to the Justice Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group focused on mass incarceration and prison re-entry reforms, about 2,000 Baltimoreans re-enter the general population from prisons each year. City residents make up 40% of the state’s prison population despite Baltimore City being only nine percent of the state’s general population.
As part of the new office there will be a Re-Entry Action Council, a board of at least 14 members who will “implement evidence-based practices to reduce recidivism rates among formerly incarcerated Baltimoreans.”
The legislation fulfills a goal for Mayor Brandon Scott, a Democrat, who is up for reelection this year.
Last spring, the mayor soft-launched the “Returning Citizens Behind the Wall” program which aims to connect new re-entrants with jobs in the city’s parks and recreation department that pay at least $15 an hour. During a February hearing, Stefanie Mavronis, director of the mayor’s public safety program, shared that the program has helped 103 participants. The goal was to help 500 participants– down from the original goal of 900 people. Mavronis told the council in February that staffing for case management was a significant obstruction.
