MADISON, Wis. — With the Dane County Jail often at capacity, reentry coordinators are trying to reduce the number of people who reenter the jail.
Natalie Flores is one reentry coordinator with the Dane County Sheriff’s Department who is doing just that.
“Do you have a safe place to sleep at night? Where have you been staying, like friends, family, the shelter?” said Flores while speaking with someone serving time at the jail.
Flores meets with inmates on a daily basis to ask questions about housing, addiction recovery, mental health and employment.
“Identify those needs that they have and then provide them with resources so it can maybe stop them from committing crimes that are leading them to coming in and out of jail,” said Flores.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, at least one in four people who go to jail are arrested again.
“So, when someone comes in and they are homeless, they don’t have a job, they don’t have health insurance, they don’t have any of their vital documents, we kind of just start where we can,” said Flores.
Flores is part of an expansion to the Dane County Jail’s reentry program.
Prior to the expansion, the Dane County Sheriff’s Department had one full-time reentry coordinator. After the expansion, the department now has three full-time reentry coordinators and one part-time reentry coordinator.
“The majority of our jail population was gone within three days and it took around three days for our current jail coordinators to get in contact with them,” said Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett.
Through funding from American Family Insurance, the sheriff’s department was able to make this expansion happen. Barrett said the expansion was necessary for residents of Dane County.
“If we really are trying to touch as many jail residents and help them once they are being released, we saw that there was a gap in our ability to provide a great service,” said Barrett.
Flores only has a short amount of time to work with the residents in the jail. She said she relies heavily on partnerships within the community to get people the help they need after they leave the jail.
“Building relationships with our community partners is definitely the top priority because without them it is really difficult to navigate where to find resources,” said Flores.
Barrett said his team currently loses contact with residents after they leave the jail. He said it is his hope in the future to provide them with more than just reentry resources.
“We have to find ways to continue to contact individuals and see if they are actually being connected with the resources out there,” said Barrett.
