The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Discretionary Grant Program (Reentry) was developed through a federal partnership by the Departments of Justice, Labor, Health and Human Service, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture. The federal partners' goal is to help state and local agencies navigate the complex field of existing state formula and block grants and to assist them in accessing, redeploying and leveraging those resources to support the components of a comprehensive reentry program. In addition to the new funding, the
federal partners are identifying funds from their respective agencies that are already available to state and local agencies to provide the necessary services to implement a reentry program. The Reentry Program is designed to provide funding to state and local units of government to develop and
implement institutional and community corrections-based offender reentry programs through collaborative partnerships with government, social service, faith-based, and community organizations, in order to reduce recidivism, increase public safety, and successfully reintegrate serious and violent offenders back into the community. Reentry programs are required to partner with a state adult or juvenile correctional agency.
The South Dakota "Coming Home" Initiative is focused on juvenile offenders returning
to three communities in South Dakota. While South Dakota has one of the largest Native
American populations, the availability of culturally specific providers and programs are limited. This supplemental funding will provide South Dakota the opportunity to develop and enhance culturally specific substance abuse and mental health programming for those targeted Native American youth participating in this initiative. Contracts with Native
American spiritual leaders will be provided to explore the potential relationship with
native spirituality and concurrent patterns of substance abuse. The ability to provide
these youth with the positive aspects of their culture through tribal elders and ceremonies,such as sweats, will greatly enhance the efforts of the South Dakota Department of Corrections to meet the needs of this specialized population.
CA/NCF
