EFFECTIVE MENTORING KEY TO AIDING FORMERLY INCARCERATED

For over 30 years, Second Chance has served thousands of San Diegans through programs designed to disrupt the cycles of incarceration and help people towards empowered self-sufficiency. Our programs are a solution to the broken economics of the current criminal justice system, which is both expensive and ineffective. We help people who are ready to change find true independence, learn healthier ways of living, and become self-sufficient and contributing members of society.

Justice-involved people often face a bleak and uncertain future. Our program participants are surrounded by barriers to their successful reintegration into our communities. These barriers inhibit meeting their basic needs such as housing and health care, as well as access to employment opportunities. The stigma of previous incarceration limits access to opportunities and inhibits self-sufficiency, even after the people we help have stopped engaging in criminal activities and have earned their “second chance.”

Justice-involved people need a real way forward, and they need it now.

And we, both as a community and as a society, also need a new way forward. The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. This is due, in part, to tough-on-crime policies that were implemented in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as to mandatory minimum sentencing laws and the “war on drugs.” In 2014, California passed Proposition 47, which reduced certain property and drug-related offenses from felonies to misdemeanors in an attempt to better address the underlying causes of certain criminal behavior. However, in his most recent State of the City address, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced his support to amend Proposition 47, not to “return to the days of the war on drugs,” but to “ensure that our laws are responding to the realities of today,” responding to voters’ legitimate fears of the frequently reported open-air drug markets and organized retail theft in other cities.

Many of our communities, and the people we help, need a second chance.

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Since the 1970s, according to the Vera Institute, “the rising cost of U.S. jails … has mirrored the increasing jail population. In recent years, however, jail populations in most large cities have begun to decline. Yet, local governments have not taken steps to disinvest from jails, generally because they have not made commensurate reductions in the number of jail employees.” This same report noted that in San Diego County, “the jail budget has increased 63 percent since fiscal year 2011. The jail population has decreased 10 percent during the same period.”

So one critical question is: How to increase public safety while making sensible choices about paying for systems that actually rehabilitate offenders and reintegrate people into our communities?

The Vera Institute website cited above estimates the annual cost per incarcerated person in San Diego at $97,799 in fiscal year 2021 dollars. At the same time, the rates at which offenders are rearrested, reconvicted and reincarcerated are too high and haven’t changed for the better. By looking at the high cost of incarceration and the high recidivism rates, the return on investment of over-incarceration doesn’t make sense to compassionate conservative- or liberal-minded people.

Over our 30-plus years of operation, Second Chance has developed a highly effective approach to achieving our mission. Through a combination of education, encouragement, specialized training and additional support, we help

people overcome barriers to achieving positive life outcomes in the areas of housing, behavioral health, substance abuse, life skills and employment. Our programs foster self-sufficiency, with the goal to create independent, empowered members of society.

Programs like Second Chance are uniquely effective through a holistic approach to meet multiple needs that are specific to the population we serve and specific to our communities. Second Chance works closely with our partners, and we reach our goals by offering programs that understand and address the deep challenges our program participants face. One key component of providing a way forward is our collaborations with our communities, the authorizing authorities such as the county’s Public Safety and Health & Human Services working groups, and political leaders.

Critically, however, the effectiveness of what we do relies on compassionately delivering a comprehensive and individually tailored approach to impart new ways of thinking, new knowledge and new skills to our program participants. This approach is only effective when it is accompanied by relationships founded on the principles of respect and a constant and positive regard for the individual. In other words, a mentoring approach.

It is widely accepted that the best predictive factor for positive outcomes in our work is when our program participants are highly receptive to the interventions. What we call “receptivity” depends on the effective mentoring at the basis of all that we do here at Second Chance.