Becoming a Second Chance City
As the only sitting mayor who has been incarcerated, Mayor Joe Ganim of Bridgeport is working to ensure residents who've served their time can successfully reintegrate into the community. When the City received $110 million in ARPA funds, one of its first investments was to fully fund the Second Chance Reentry program which helps residents returning from the justice system access stable housing, job training, and other services. Director of the Mayor’s Initiative for Reentry Affairs (MIRA) Earl Bloodworth explains that, “[We’ve] formulated a plan to try to make Bridgeport a second chance city, and give everyone an opportunity for redemption.”
Why this investment?
Bridgeport’s Second Chance Reentry program was prioritized as an investment in large part because of Mayor Joe Ganim’s own history with the justice system. Mayor Ganim served as Bridgeport mayor from 1991-2003, was convicted on corruption charges in March of 2003, and subsequently served seven years in prison until his release in 2010. Ganim was again elected mayor in 2015. Understanding the distinct struggles individuals have when being reintroduced from the justice system, he began the Mayor’s Initiative for Reentry Affairs (MIRA) in 2016.
“Mayor Ganim is a second chance mayor, so this definitely was a prioritization for him,” Bloodworth says. “As he says, and I say, we got ourselves a second chance, and are working with folks to give them second chances… but truthfully, a lot of the folks that we're trying to provide a second chance never had a first chance.”
MIRA made important strides in acknowledging the struggles many face when reentering society after serving time, but suffered from underfunding. ARPA presented an opportunity to fully fund the program and reach more people.
What is this investment?
The Connecticut State of Reentry 2024 report identified 86 people scheduled to be released in the next six months and 392 people currently on community supervision, either on parole or in a halfway house. A majority of these individuals identify as Black and have spent between one and five years incarcerated. The Second Chance Reentry program works with those released to understand their past or current status in regard to multiple aspects that could affect their life in the reentry process. These aspects include substance use, mental health, medical needs, education level, and employment history. Gathering this information allows for the reentry program to understand the fuller picture of the person reentering society, rather than just a surface level view, and enables the program to assist in the best ways possible.
The Second Chance Reentry program works in partnership with local grassroots organizations that were selected through a public procurement process, and granted funds and assistance to those organizations for three years to help aid in their reentry advocacy. In total, 12 organizations were selected through a simplified application process and committees that included formerly incarcerated people. These grassroots organizations, such as Women Against Mass Incarceration and the Center for Children’s Advocacy, provide a variety of services including housing support, medical health services, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, financial literacy, job training and placement, and education services. The programs are designed to create a comfortable and self-improving environment for formerly incarcerated individuals to adjust to a healthy, stable lifestyle. Bloodworth notes that they have also started the first ever pilot “Welcome Center” for reentry in the city of Bridgeport, where individuals, when they're released from prison, can have a smooth transition and start getting connected to resources immediately.
Centering equity in the program
While equity wasn’t the term used for the program, it was the lens that was applied. Bloodworth says that Second Chance Reentry is a program focused on a population that is marginalized and disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Including formerly incarcerated people on the committee selecting service providers is one strategy they used to ensure equitable program design.
Bloodworth said that getting the program off the ground and running has been a fairly smooth process. However, there is room for improvement, especially in having accurate numbers about when and how many people are going to be released and the various different collateral consequences for people trying to seek employment and housing.Bridgeport is working to improve reporting methods and involving formerly incarcerated individuals in the design of the program to ensure Second Chance Reentry doesn’t leave anyone behind.
Serving people who were held on a pretrial basis—sometimes for many months—is also a challenge. Roughly 500 to 700 individuals are released in Bridgeport each year, but this number doesn’t typically account for people who are being held in prison until their court date. “You have folks that are locked up until their court date, and these folks can be locked up for a week, they can be locked up for two months, they can be locked up for a year until their court date,” Bloodworth says. “These folks, when they come out, their life could be blown up just as much as somebody who was incarcerated.”
Outcomes to date
The Second Chance Reentry program is geared toward assisting those released from prison, but another positive outcome is that several of the organizations have already received additional funding based on the work that they're doing with the program, while others have expanded some of their services. The University of Bridgeport is extending classes for reentry individuals, as well as their career resources and recovery network programming. Another organization has been able to purchase transportation that helps them take people to doctor's appointments, addiction treatment, or even taking kids to see their parents who are in prison.
Toward transformative change
The ultimate goal for Bridgeport is to be a second chance city. They want people to have the opportunity to return from the carceral system without being completely left to their own devices, and have a fair chance at staying out of prison.