By Ivonne Garcia, Margaret Hennessy, Erin Jacobs Valentine, Jedediah Teres and Rachel Sander

Each year in the United States, about 600,000 people are released from state and federal prisons, and millions more are released from local jails. These men and women—known as “returning citizens”—face a tough transition to the community. Often with few financial resources, they must address their day-to-day needs of food, clothing, and housing; obtain identification and access to medical care; and endeavor to find employment and reconnect with family. For those released in 2020 and early 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic made the transition even more difficult. Yet federal emergency relief funds may have done little to help them, since they may not have had access to the funds if they lacked recent work histories or tax returns.

In April 2020, the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO—a nonprofit organization that provides services to returning citizens, also known as “reentry services”) launched the Returning Citizens Stimulus program (RCS) in an effort to fill this gap. RCS was a cash transfer program that offered financial support to returning citizens during the critical period just after their release. Participants were eligible for three monthly payments totaling up to $2,750 if they reached milestones such as preparing résumés.

New York: MDRC, 2021. 68p.

By Daniel Koehler

Counterterrorism has, in the last ten years, come to the fore of international relations, and remains in the news almost daily. This is due in large part to the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which in turn have also prompted something of a backlash against such military or “hard” approaches to countering terrorism. Partly in response, states and civil society have sought out softer, often preventive, measures to deal with violent extremism, many of which have been deemed more successful than military approaches and less likely to foment a new generation of violent extremists. However, problems remain. “Deradicalization” programs, which are geared toward peacefully moving individuals and groups away from violent extremism, have grown both in popularity and in scope of late, even in just the past five years. While these programs vary widely, with differing subjects (e.g., prisoners, potential terrorists, convicted criminals, repentant extremists), aims (e.g., abandonment of extreme views, disengagement from terrorism, rehabilitation into society), sizes (from just a handful of participants to hundreds), and forms (from arranging jobs, marriages, and new lives for participants, to merely educating them on nonviolent alternatives to their methods), common themes and problems can be discerned. With recent high-profile cases of recidivism by supposedly “deradicalized” individuals, questions are being raised about the efficacy of these programs and about how best to design them

New York: International Peace Institute, 2010. 20p,

By Jerome G. Miller.

Last One over the Wall is an analytical and autobiographical account of Jerome G. Miller’s tenure as head of the Massachusetts juvenile justice system, during which he undertook one of the most daring and drastic steps in recent juvenile justice history—he closed reformatories and returned offenders to community supervision and treatment by private schools and youth agencies. Filled with insights into juvenile and adult behavior in prison and outside, Miller’s account provides a rare opportunity to view our juvenile justice system as a whole, including all the politics, economics, and social biases that come with it. In a new preface for this edition, the author reflects on his decision of seven years ago and the lessons learned from it.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998. 279p.

By “Philanthropy.”

A Series of Letters published in the “Montreal Gazette” by “Philanthropy.”

Montreal Salter and Ross (1857) 35 pages.