Executive Summary
This report examines the prisoner reentry phenomenon in the city of Philadelphia, focusing on the return of prisoners from the Philadelphia Prison System (PPS). As part of the mandate given by the Philadelphia Prison System, the report describes the process of prisoner reentry in Philadelphia by examining trends in incarceration and prison releases within the city, the characteristics of the city?s returning prisoners, self-reported experiences with rehabilitative programming while incarcerated, prisoners' expectations for their post-release experiences, the geographic distribution of returning prisoners, trends in community supervision, and characteristics of selected neighborhoods with high concentrations of return. This report does not attempt to evaluate a specific reentry program or to empirically assess Philadelphia?s reentry policies and practices. The report does not describe returning prisoners from prisons in the state of Pennsylvania correctional system. Rather, the report consolidates existing data on incarceration and release trends, and presents a new analysis of data on Philadelphia prisoners released between 1996 and 2003. The data used in this report were derived from several sources, including the Philadelphia Prison System, Philadelphia Adult Parole and Probation, and interviews with prisoners conducted by the Urban Institute. Highlights from this report are presented below.
Incarceration and Release Trends. Overall, there were a total of 240,729 individuals admitted and subsequently released from PPS in the eight years studied here, 1996-2003. However, during those eight years, only 106,849 different persons were incarcerated and released. Almost exactly half (53,621) were incarcerated and released multiple times (3.5 times on average). These individuals accounted for 187,501 incarcerations and releases, or 78 percent of all releases during these eight years. Another 53,228 individuals were incarcerated in PPS only once, accounting for 22 percent of all releases in the study period. In the last year of the study (2003), 70 percent of released prisoners had previously been incarcerated in PPS. Among the 8,780 prisoners released in 2003 after having served a sentence in PPS, 78 percent had previously been prisoners (either detained or sentenced) in PPS. Probation and parole violators account for about half of all sentenced inmates.
Characteristics of Released Prisoners. The typical returning prisoner in 2003 was a 31-year-old black male, unmarried with at least one dependent, who had dropped out before completing high school. Those with multiple periods of incarceration were more likely to be black, single and have more dependents. They are also younger (29 compared to 32 years old), and tend to have higher levels of education attainment - although this difference may be due in part to repeated exposure to in-prison GED programs.
In-prison Programming. Among the survey sample of those having been in PPS for a substantial period, more than half of PPS prisoners were offered the OPTIONS program (a drug rehabilitation program) and 44 percent reported participating. This rate is consistent with other data reported in the survey ? 43 percent of prisoners self-reported frequent marijuana use and 29 percent reported frequent use of other drugs. For other programs in PPS, generally about 30 percent reported having received an offer to participate in each program. Most PPS inmates offered a program participate in that program ? about 75 percent. Overall, most respondents reported at least moderate levels of satisfaction with PPS programming.
Geographic Distribution of Released Prisoners. The majority of prisoners released from PPS during 2002 and 2003 were released to communities in Philadelphia (85 percent). The Urban Institute mapped the likely return addresses of prisoners in PPS that were released from 2002 to 2003. Approximately 28,000 total addresses could be mapped. Six neighborhoods were identified from the data as examples of neighborhoods with high rates of returning prisoners: Cobbs Creek, Fishtown, Frankford, Hartranft, Hunting Park, and West Kensington. Three of the communities fare poorly on traditional measures of community economic strength (Hartranft, Hunting Park and West Kensington) and three are similar to city-wide averages (Cobbs Creek, Fishtown and Frankford). Data also indicate that these communities have higher than average rates of crimes against persons.
Prisoners Expectations for Release. Most PPS prisoners in the sample of PPS prisoner surveyed for this report are highly optimistic about their post-release prospects. A majority of respondents (59 percent) intend to live with family members post-release. The most popular living arrangement reported was with a mother or stepmother (24 percent) followed by a significant other (17 percent). Most prisoners believe that they will be welcomed back by supportive family (90 percent), friends (80 percent), and a community where they will be socially accepted. Inmate optimism was somewhat tempered with respect to their ability to avoid future incarceration. Twenty percent of respondents reported that it would be very hard or pretty hard to avoid a return to prison. A larger percentage (31 percent) of those who expected to be under community supervision post-release stated that avoiding a parole/probation violation would be difficult.
Release and Supervision Policies and Practices. Cases assigned to Philadelphia?s Adult Parole and Probation Department (APPD) often include offenders with sentences for several different charges and several different cases. The department handles probation cases, parole cases, and cases involving a combination of parole and probation sentences with little to no distinction between the different types cases. There are two different types of parole: 1) parole that is granted after a prisoner has served a sufficient proportion of their sentence, and 2) bench parole ? where offenders receive credit for pre-trial time in detention and are directly paroled at sentencing. In 2003, 8,772 individual terms, or about 50 percent of all new supervision terms, in the data set were strictly probation cases. Another 5,470 were probation and parole terms, or about 31 percent of all terms. Only 14 percent of all supervision cases were parole cases.
Conclusion. Much of the data in this report focuses on activities around the release from prison. It is important to note that not only is each release from prison unique and challenging: it is the cumulative disorder associated with each individual who is released and who requires assistance, intervention and supervision to prevent future offending. The challenge to the City is how to intervene with the thousands of individuals cycling through the prison system arrest after arrest, year after year. |
