On October 25, Marion County will celebrate ten years of the "Giving People a Second Chance" community breakfast which supports the Marion County Reentry Initiative. The event will be held at the Salem Conference Center located at 200 Commercial St. SE in Salem. Doors open at 7 a.m. and the program will begin promptly at 7:30 a.m. There is no cost to attend, but pre-registration is required at http://bit.ly/2018MCRI.
This engaging and inspiring event will feature a retrospective of the last ten years of the Marion County Reentry Initiative – a collaborative effort involving public safety and justice, mental health and substance abuse treatment, victim services, health care, and education partners working together to rebuild lives, promote community safety, and save taxpayer money by breaking the cycle of criminal activity.
"Supervising people through parole and probation is only part of the equation," said Commissioner Janet Carlson. "People have to have housing, they have to have jobs, they have to have good support systems, and they have to reunite with their families. Parenting can become a real challenge. There are a lot of barriers for people trying to successfully reintegrate into the community."
More than 600 offenders are released into Marion County communities each year. Forty-eight percent of those released are immediately homeless, 60-70 percent have substance abuse problems, and most have no transportation. Seventy percent are parents.
The reentry initiative helps those reentering society by giving them access to opportunities for assistance with housing, employment, job skills, mentoring, transportation, and treatment for mental health and addiction.
By providing comprehensive services, Marion County has seen dramatic reductions in recidivism – defined as committing a new felony crime within three years of release. The county's recidivism rate has seen a steady decline since 2002 when it was 37 percent. Recidivism dipped to an all-time low of 14 percent in 2014 and has been holding steady at roughly 20 percent for the last few years.
Visit http://bit.ly/2018MCRI to register on Eventbrite. For more information, contact the Marion County Board of Commissioners Office at (503) 588-5212 or email kwitherell@co.marion.or.us.
