Nevada Program Uses Mediation to Assist the Homecoming of Released Prisoners

Source: (2006) Voma Connections. Spring 2006, Number 23. pp.1, 10-11.

Barbara Strahl manages to interweave both the personal stories and the sobering statistics related to offenders transitioning from prison to home life. The reader meets the pseudonymous Adam, who is having difficulty seeing the severity of his crime and subsequent incarceration from his family’s perspective. Strahl then addresses the problems often associated with community reentry of prisoners, such as public safety, societal reintegration, and possible lack of family support. It is in this context that Strahl explains the formation and structure of FOCUS, a family mediation program developed by the Neighborhood Justice Center in Las Vegas. FOCUS was formed with the belief that family mediation would be a tool for community reentry of prisoners and would also assist the family to reincorporate the inmate into the family structure. The reader is then introduced to Terri (not her real name), who is having trouble getting her family to address her offense and the changes it has brought about within the family unit as she begins her transition to home life. Strahl closes by describing how beneficial FOCUS mediation was to Terri and her family, and how the program will continue to assist soon-to-be released prisoners with their reentries.