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The Montana Reentry Initiative aims to unite and expand the efforts around the state to help offenders return to their communities – and stay there. In terms of boots on the ground, MacDonald pointed to Missoula and the work of Jana Staton and Partners for Reintegration, which has already brought together nearly 200 interested community members to examine issues like housing, employment, mentoring, and public awareness. “I think they’re going to have to do something, unless they just want to keep on building prisons,” Yates said. “It’s a set-up-to-fail system … and once you’re in the system, it is really hard to make that break from [it].”
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While reentry transition efforts in Montana are still in infancy, the state is – as Director Batista describes it – in a “unique” position. Montana already manages 80 percent of offenders outside of prison, in community corrections programs across the state. It’s a statistic Batista hasn’t seen the likes of anywhere in the country.
MONTANA ALREADY MANAGES % OF OFFENDERS OUTSIDE OF PRISON, IN COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS PROGRAMS ACROSS THE STATE.
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While it doesn’t guarantee more successful reform, the Montana DOC has more discretion than almost any other state when it comes to tailoring the management – or punishment – of offenders and focusing on the individual’s needs. Neither MacDonald nor Batista made any suggestion that reentry work is a softening of the attitude or policy toward crime. Establishing transitional help is specifically geared toward those most likely to benefit and move on productively – the offenders who have paid their debt. “If we do reduce that [recidivism] rate, we have the potential to save literally tens of millions of dollars,” MacDonald said. “Incarceration is one of the most expensive things the state of Montana does.”
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