Two prominent St. Louis-area programs that help smooth the re-entry process for former inmates freed from incarceration are expanding to better address what one official called “the big problem”: the staggering rate of recidivism.
St. Charles-based Connections to Success, which launched in 2001 as Dress For Success Midwest, offers returnees a support system that includes not only access to clothing and transportation to aid in the job search process, but also mentoring, skills building and “life transformation coaching,” officials there said. The organization, which serves about 600 new individuals annually, has begun training other groups to offer similar training.
In August 2020, Concordance Academy of Leadership, which recently moved its national headquarters to Creve Coeur, launched The First Chance Campaign — a $50 million fundraising effort chaired by David Steward, World Wide Technology founder and chairman — to expand its ‘holistic’ re-entry model outside of St. Louis.
About $15 million has been raised so far in the effort to add up to 11 U.S. cities by 2025, including potentially Kansas City, Kan., Dallas and Chicago.
Reducing the rate of recidivism — the revolving door that sees many of those convicted of crimes head back to prison in short order — not only saves tax dollars, experts said, but also helps break what can become an intergenerational curse.
“We call it the big problem, frankly,” said Roderick Nunn, executive vice president and head of education and employment with Concordance, which works exclusively with returnees. He was referring to statistics showing that more than two-thirds of individuals released from prison are rearrested within three to five years.
“We believe in getting our participants on a healing journey to help stabilize them,” Nunn said. “We have licensed clinicians who are addressing the therapy [needs] and the underlying trauma. We have education, job readiness and we’re addressing skills deficits.
“We are connecting and tethering all those services together,” he added. “It makes a difference when you take a holistic and integrated approach.”
Perhaps no region of the state has more to gain from addressing the issues of incarceration and recidivism than St. Louis city and county.
In the state’s fiscal year 2020, more people who were released on parole had been sentenced in St. Louis city or county than in any other area of the state — 2,683 released inmates or 14 percent of the statewide total, according to data from the Missouri Department of Corrections. Another 714 hailed from St. Charles County, which also is in Concordance’s service area.
Usually, but not always, those leaving confinement seek the familiar and the familial, which means a return to the county where they were sentenced, according to the DOC.
The U.S. releases more than 600,000 people from prison each year, according to the federal Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Within 3 years of their release, more than half are incarcerated again.
Concordance serves about 250 new participants a year and plans to expand that number to 500 a year “and eventually to a thousand a year in the St. Louis market and in other geographic locations across the country as well,” Nunn said.
The Concordance business model, Nunn said, was created by researchers with the goal of reducing reincarceration rates by 33 percent. In the years since the program launched in 2016, the drop has been closer to 44%, Nunn said.
“We’re serving the hardest to serve,” said Nunn, who formerly was vice chancellor for economic development and workforce solutions and an interim campus president with St. Louis Community College. “We’re taking on those individuals in the population who really need the help. We’ve been holding steady at a 44% reduction in reincarceration. We’re just very humbled by that.”
Armed with an annual budget of more than $3 million, including corporate support from Emerson Electric and Edward Jones, Connections to Success worked with about 545 new individuals in 2020, down somewhat from the 738 helped in 2019.
In 2020 and 2019, about 70 percent of the participants had previously been incarcerated, according to Brandi Jahnke, executive vice president of programs.
Nearly 60 percent of the participants are men and 42 percent are women. Just over half are African American, and 36 percent are Caucasian.
The Connections model generally begins with pre-release training and continues with more “personal and professional development” once the participants are released from custody, said Ruth Lee, who has been chief executive of Connections to Success since January.
The training ranges from sharing workplace skills to focusing on parenting and healthy relationships.
The organization has offices in St. Louis, St. Charles, Mo., Columbia, Mo., Kansas City, Mo., Kansas City, Kan. and East St. Louis, Ill.
Lee hopes to expand to Houston, where her team would train people to train others on the organization’s “personal professional,” model.
The organization also has been training some members of the Department of Corrections staff to deliver Connections-style training to “returning citizens,” Jahnke said.
In a promotional video from a 2019 conference on reentry co-hosted by the DOC, Mataka Askari, who served 23 years in prison for a nonviolent drug crime, talked about the value of learning “new skills, new patterns of behavior” through Connections to Success.
“I believe in that stuff, ” said Askari, who in 1995 originally was sentenced to 30 years behind bars, and now works for Connections to Success, “because I’m a living witness to it.”
For participants who are fully engaged with the program for at least the first 12 months, only “about 12 percent recidivate,” Jahnke said.
Stats like that, Nunn said, create a circle of winners.
“We have an incredible vision about … reducing reincarceration rates and not just for the numbers,” said Nunn. “But helping to ensure that the citizens can enjoy purposeful, abundant and joyful lives. That’s what you see behind the numbers: real people, you know, who are living their best lives.”
For more information contact Concordance Academy of Leadership: https://concordanceacademy.org
Connections to Success: https://connectionstosuccess.org/
