Alabama Reentry Commission to transition into quarterly task force focused on workforce, behavioral health and data

Members of the Alabama Reentry Commission agreed at an organizational meeting to transition the body into a quarterly task force and establish working groups to carry out recommendations on workforce development, behavioral health care, reentry preparedness and data collection, officials said.

The move is meant to speed implementation of recommendations from the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and concentrate the commission’s work into focused action teams. "If you can accomplish those three things at one time, nine times out of ten, you're gonna succeed," Cam Ward, director of the Bureau of Pardons and Parole and chairman of the commission, said, describing workforce, mental health and substance use treatment as the "three-legged stool" of reentry success.

CSG summary and why it matters

Megan Pfeiffer, project manager for Reentry 2030 at the Council of State Governments Justice Center, told commissioners the CSG assessment distilled recommendations into four thematic areas: 1) workforce development and employer…