Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on Tuesday began a broad effort to aid inmates’ return to society and cut the number of offenders returning to prison shortly after their release.
McDonnell announced the creation of the Virginia Prisoner and Juvenile Offender Re-Entry Council, which will accompany a set of tweaks to state law passed this year by the General Assembly.
One new law will force inmates in work programs to contribute part of their pay toward their fines. The other will create “immediate sanction probation programs” aimed at keeping nonviolent probation violators from clogging the prison system.
The council — one of several ambitious panels the governor has formed since he took office — will be tasked with reducing the roughly 29 percent of inmates who are reimprisoned within three years of being let out.
Sen. Dave Marsden, a former acting director of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, said too many state inmates are sitting in local jails awaiting prison, and too few are in the jails awaiting release.
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Leroy Hassell Sr., the first black chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, said Tuesday he will step down from the leadership post. Hassell, first elected by his colleagues as chief justice in 2002, said he plans to remain on the state’s high court.
“I want to see that 4,000 people predominately on their way home versus stacked up waiting to go to prison,” he said. “Once you have them in the local jails, it will be easier for the community to respond to them and start providing them with some of the things they need to be successful.”
The council’s functions include finding and removing government barriers “that may impede successful transition of offenders returning to their communities,” boosting transitional services, and working with businesses and community colleges to find jobs for released offenders, according to McDonnell’s executive order. The panel is slated to provide an update on its work by December of each year. “Effective re-entry policies can improve public safety, reduce victimization, improve outcomes for offenders returning to their communities, and reduce recidivism,” McDonnell said in a statement “We must assist prisoners re-entering the community in their effort to succeed, rather to reoffend.”
