Pubdate: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 Source: Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (FL) Copyright: 1999 Sun-Sentinel Company Contact: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/letters_editor.htm Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ Forum: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/community/interact1.htm Author: Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press RENO WANTS STATE, LOCAL COURTS TO HELP OVERSEE EX-PRISONERS Washington - Attorney General Janet Reno wants to use state and local judges to help supervise released prisoners in community-wide plans designed to reduce the number who return to prison. "Too often, offenders leave prison and return to the community without supervision, without jobs, without houseing," she said on Thursday. "They quickly fall back into their old patterns of drug usage, gang activities and other crimes." Each year, 500,000 state prisoners are released and up to 22 percent have no continuing supervision through probation or parole. She wants to enlist state and local judges in overseeing such high-risk ex-prisoners. "Our goal is to minimize public safety risks that occure when offenders come back to the community ill-prepared to cope", she said. The Justice Department sent letters to several thousand state and local officials this month soliciting proposals for so-called re-entry courts, which would be paid for locally but receive technical assistance from the federal government. "A re-entry court is a court that would oversee an offender's return to the community after release from prison", Reno said. "Judges, working closely with others, would approve a plan for reintegrating the offender into the community. The court would then monitor and enforce the plan," Reno said. "The partners of the court would include institutional and community corrections officials, law inforcement, local businesses, the clergy and the cuurches they serve, support services, victims' advocatyes and neighborhood organizations." She compared re-entry courts to drug courts, which she championed as a state prosecutor in Miami and which have since spread around the country. "The court would use its authority to apply ... as drug courts do ... the carot-and-stick approach: Stay clean, stay out of trouble, get a job, and we will help you in that effrt. But if you come back testing positive for drugs, if you commit further crime ... you're going to face a more serious punishment every step of the way." - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D