Emerging Roles and Responsibilities in the Reentry Partnership Initiative: New Ways of Doing Business

Abstract

The Reentry Partnership Initiative (RPI) programs we have examined share a common vision about offenders, communities, and the issue of public safety: we must act as a system to improve public safety in our communities. The Reentry Partnership Initiative (RPI) will require key criminal justice system actors (police, courts, corrections, community) to redefine their role and responsibility in this area, focusing not on what individual agencies should be doing, but on what the “partnership” should be doing to improve public safety. To facilitate this shift from individual agency-level reentry activities to coordinated system-wide reentry efforts, fundamental changes in the roles and responsibilities of police, court, and corrections personnel will have to be made. A major development is the inclusion of the community - victims and offenders in the partnership - sharing responsibilities for offender reintegration.