A noble call

Rehabilitation a vital mission

April is Second Chance Month, and in keeping with that theme, we are finishing National Re-entry Awareness Week. All week, the Arkansas Department of Corrections has been working to highlight our many programs and services geared toward giving offenders the tools necessary to find success.

In what is intended to be a challenging environment — adult corrections — there are opportunities for rehabilitation. There are opportunities to take broken men and women and provide them tools and support choices that restore not only the offenders but their families.

More than 80,000 adult offenders are currently either incarcerated in Department of Corrections facilities or are on parole or probation supervision. Over 80% of state prison inmates will be released from prison at some point in their sentence.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson saw the need to strengthen Arkansas families and established his Restore Hope Initiative. This program initiated important conversations across this state. Those conversations began with accepting that “they” are coming home and then advocated for wrap-around reentry services through public-private partnerships.

For the Department of Corrections, the reentry process is continual, and a critical part of the selfless service provided by our staff. For us, preparing for reentry begins on the first day an offender is incarcerated.

We cannot have safe communities without advancing evidence-based rehabilitative programming.

So we work constantly to increase the effectiveness of our programming in order to reduce recidivism and to put offenders in a better position to be law-abiding and contributory members of society.

Effective correctional programming requires a balance. In community supervision, that balance is the enforcement of conditions of release and providing community-based treatment, in addition to facilitating continual opportunities for success. On the institutional side, it is about being fair, firm and consistent in providing a safe and secure environment for the correction of negative, criminal behavior, while supporting our programming, treatment, educational services and the work of the countless volunteers whose work is so vital to our mission.

It is incumbent on the Department of Corrections to provide offenders who have the capability and desire to change with the tools that are necessary to effectuate that change. We take that responsibility seriously.

If we prepare offenders on the inside with effective programming and teach them marketable job skills, when they get out, our desire is that they will not only get jobs but they will get high-skill jobs that allow them to provide for themselves and their families. That way, they are not in a position where they feel their only option is to fall back with the same crowd or same mentality that landed them in prison.

None of these changes would be possible without the 4,600 men and women who make up the Arkansas Department of Corrections family. Next week, we will recognize their special dedication and passion during National Correctional Officers and Employees Appreciation Week. Our theme for the week is “Selfless Service.” It truly takes special men and women to step forward and say “Here I am, send me” in answer to that noble call of this important criminal-justice profession.

It has been my great honor to lead an organization staffed by real-life heroes who report to duty every day.

A lot of times, the limelight shines on people with titles who work in corner offices. But the most important people are in the offices and at the desks you pass to get to the corner office, or staffing the posts most of you will never see.

The most important people have boots on the ground. They are turning keys, serving meals and providing programming, treatment, and administrative support at our facilities. They are parole and probation officers who are in the communities every day doing home visits and providing that consistent supervision and strict enforcement of conditions of release, but also providing opportunities for continued change in the community.

Not all offenders are going to be a success, but whether they are a success is because of choices they make. Our job is to do everything we can to help them make the best choices. We will remain committed to our job and to answering that noble call.

I hope you will take the opportunity during the coming days to express your appreciation to the men and women of the Arkansas Department of Corrections for their vital work to strengthen Arkansas families and make our communities safer.