Behavioral Health Problems, Ex-Offender Reentry Policies, and the "Second Chance Act"

This research analyzes the intersection between individual-level characteristics and policy-level restrictions affecting the reintegration of people with mental illness leaving prison. Using data from 3,073 New Jersey state prisoners with Axis I mental disorders, the study examines how criminal conviction types interact with existing federal and state policies to create barriers to accessing essential resources upon reentry. The researchers categorized prisoners by their most serious conviction and analyzed policy restrictions across eight domains: employment, housing, public assistance, education, parental rights, driver's licenses, voting and jury duty, and criminal record expungement.

The findings reveal extensive "invisible punishments" embedded within existing policies that serve as roadblocks to community reintegration. All individuals in the sample faced lifetime consequences from their felony convictions, including restrictions on employment opportunities, housing access, educational funding, parental rights, and jury service participation. Those with drug-related convictions faced additional barriers, including lifetime bans on public housing and conditional restrictions on public assistance eligibility. Violent offenders encountered the most comprehensive restrictions, facing lifetime consequences across six of the eight policy domains examined, with no time limits on employer access to criminal records or ineligibility for public housing.

The study highlights a fundamental contradiction between the federal Second Chance Act's call for expanding reentry services and existing policies that systematically exclude people with criminal records from accessing those very services. For individuals with mental illness, who often depend on public assistance and have limited social networks, these restrictions are particularly onerous. The research demonstrates that people with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders face the most severe restrictions, as drug-related convictions carry stricter and more durable penalties. The authors conclude that without modification of federal and state policies, the ability of reentry services to foster behavioral health recovery and successful community reintegration remains fundamentally limited.