Fact Sheet #10
Re-Entry Programs
Linkages Between Jails, Prisons and Community Providers
New York City Link
Population Served: Individuals with serious mental illnesses who were
charged with violent or non-violent misdemeanors or with felonies and are being
released from jails and prisons. Seventy-five percent have co-occurring disorders,
37% are homeless and 40% live in marginal situations in high-crime neighborhoods.
Program Description: NYC-LINK has been in operation since 1995 and is
sponsored by the city's mental health department. It currently serves 70-100
clients a year and provides court-based diversion, discharge planning and transition
services to people with mental illnesses being released from city jails or state
or federal prisons. Linkage planners conduct comprehensive intake assessments
to determine eligibility.
Planners are at the city's jail (Rikers Island); for those in state or federal
prison, telephone contact is made prior to release. Following assessment, a
community-services plan is created, applications are filed for appropriate benefits
and housing referrals are made (and sometimes completed). LINK team members
meet clients as they are released (at a transit station or at the jail) and
take them to their residence and also to their initial report to their parole
officer.
Staff furnish case management services and advocate for clients with service
providers and with courts. The program provides access to medications while
clients are waiting for Medicaid coverage and provides any necessary additional
help on benefit issues. Peer support services are also offered. Staff make monthly
case management visits, conduct weekly calls to community providers and intervene
in emergencies.
Services are intensive for the first two months after release. Less intensive
follow-up is conducted for one year for misdemeanants and two years for felons.
Funding: New York State office of mental health and New York City.
Patuxent Institution Community Integration Project, Maryland
Population served: Inmates with serious mental illnesses or dual diagnoses
who are within eight months of mandatory release.
Program Description: This program is a collaboration between the Patuxent Correctional
Institution, Baltimore Mental Health Services, Baltimore Intensive Case Management
Programs (ICM) and Baltimore city mental health providers. Eight months prior
to release, inmates are identified for participation in the program, which is
voluntary. The ICM program in the community may reject the case.
Three months before release, inmates meet with the ICM, which assesses their
needs and prepares community-services plans for them. The community services
plan addresses the individual's need for intensive case management, mobile services,
outpatient treatment, psychiatric rehabilitation, housing, vocational and educational
services, access to entitlements, family supports and substance abuse treatment.
Upon release, inmates are transported from the correctional institution to the
appropriate agreed-upon site in Baltimore during normal working hours. They
are supplied with medication for 7-10 days and given a prescription for an additional
30 days. Patuxent Institute staff follow up with released inmates at 14, 30
and 90 days after release to monitor how well the inmate is linked to necessary
services.
Costs: The Baltimore ICM is paid $500 for each client for whom a services
plan is completed upon release.
Funding: Baltimore Mental Health Systems and the state mental health
authority.
Hamden County, Massachusetts
Population Served: Inmates among the 1,700 residing at Hamden County
Correctional Center who have been incarcerated more than 30 days, losing their
Medicaid eligibility.
Program Description: Corrections officials partner with Behavioral Health
Networks, which has a forensic division and an extensive network of community
clinics. Two to three months before an inmate with a mental illness is released,
a full-time discharge facilitator screens for Medicaid eligibility. The discharge
planner helps inmates complete their applications, which the planner then flags
with a sticker, "pre-release incarcerated," and sends with a letter
to the state Medicaid agency's central processing unit. The information is entered
into the computer, which automatically rejects the application because the applicant
is incarcerated and generates a letter to that effect which goes back to the
discharge planner. On the day of release, the inmate is given five days' medication,
an appointment at a mental health center within that time and a letter explaining
that the Medicaid application is on file. The discharge planner also faxes a
letter to the Medicaid agency notifying it of the inmate's release. Because
the application is already in the Medicaid agency's computer, the mental health
worker can reactivate it immediately during the inmate's first appointment.
Rensselaer County, New York
Jail staff are trained to help inmates complete application forms for entitlement
programs so they can access their benefits more quickly upon release. Staff
also accompany the individual to their local Social Security Office to complete
the application process. As a result, many receive these benefits within 24
hours of release.
New York State pays for psychiatric medications for people leaving jail or
prison, provided the individual applies for Medicaid, and transition managers
assist former inmates in filing claims for benefits.
In addition, because inmates have often lost identification documents and lack
of ID can preclude access to benefits and services, inmates receive picture
identification cards.
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