This report is the outgrowth of a collaboration between the Transformational Prison Project (TPP) and World Peace Foundation (WPF), that sought to assess the impact of TPP’s informal supports to people experiencing reentry. TPP was created by incarcerated men inside MCI-Norfolk, as a restorative justice (RJ) initiative to support men to recognize the harms they have experienced, take responsibility for the harms they have caused, and work to repair community relationships. Today, they advance this goal through formal programs including RJ circles, mentoring, and a digital literacy course, offered to three target audiences: currently incarcerated youth and adults, people who are professionals or students within key sectors that influence the criminal justice system, and people experiencing reentry.
For people in reentry, TPP also provides informal or unstructured support, including addressing immediate needs as someone gets out, mentoring about how to access material and practical resources from service-providing organizations, offering guidance on how to manage probation and parole requirements, providing social and emotional support, and engaging in community-building activities. They are also available as needed, only a call away regardless of the day or time. To assess the impact of these informal supports, TPP and WPF invited 30 people who received support from TPP to be interviewed for reentry oral histories that help us understand the role TPP played within their reentry journeys.
The report introduces RJ through the lens of TPP’s evolution as an organization and outlines the research challenge of assessing the impact of their informal reentry support. It then explains the methodology of participatory action research (PAR) that guided the project. The next section addresses findings from the interviews related to what helps someone achieve successful reentry following incarceration, and definitions of “success” and “reentry.” It then provides in-depth analysis of key themes from the interviews, focusing on the obstacles, where people find help, and how TPP supported them. It examines responses to questions about whether receiving support from someone with lived experience of reentry was important, an inquiry that received a resoundingly positive response from all 30 interviewees, and explore how and why lived experience matters. Finally, it concludes with insights about the significance of RJ practices, which all 30 people interviewed engaged with through TPP, in shaping their reentry experiences.
For a concise overview, access an Executive Summary of the report.
