Reentry simulation demonstrates the difficulty of post-incarceration

Oct. 2—With the jail and homeless population growing in Pulaski County, advocates in the community have begun outreach to help the public understand the difficulties facing those leaving jail and reentering society. Held in the Somerset Community College Harold Rogers Student Commons, The Reentry Simulation took place last Wednesday.

The simulation's goals were to allow community members to have "an experience of solidarity, compassion, and action," according to the flyer. The event was operated by the Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) who puts on similar events across the Commonwealth.

The event had booths set up where participants could get pretend ID's, money, jobs, probation and parole, and food stamps. Many of the people at these booths were clients of Sky Hope Recovery Center whose experience of reentry were all too real.

Participants began the simulation sitting in chairs facing away from each other in groups dubbed "housing." Participants were also given name tags with the name of a fictional former prisoners who had recently been released from incarceration. In the first round (or "week") of the simulation, participants were given fifteen minutes to accomplish all their goals.

Each participant's name tag came with a given scenario. While the instructions on which goals to complete for each scenario were clear, how to complete these goals were not. The purpose of this was to demonstrate how difficult it can be to accomplish these goals without proper guidance.

Traveling to each booth also required spending "transportation tokens" which required participants to spend "money" to be able to get from place to place and buy more tokens when they ran out.

Gail Cummins, Community Outreach manager for BrightView Health heard of the event when a BrightView location attended a similar simulation in Pikeville. She felt it was necessary to do the same even in Pulaski County.

"We hosted (the event) with the hopes that would be able to not only let individuals have a little more empathy for situations that they don't understand when it comes to people who are coming back into the work force from incarceration or longterm recovery, because they tend to go hand in hand," said Cummins. "But also I wanted us to as providers and those of us who are participating to be able to see some of those barriers and think 'Okay, I didn't know that was there. Let's see what we can do to remove that before they get back caught in the thing.'"

The event had scenarios where people went back to prison. Cummins said her role had her failing drug tests over and over. Some had to choose between caring for their children or attending their court dates. Not attending court resulted in a Failure to Appear charge, which put them back in jail. Appearing meant a child neglect charge, which also put them back in jail.

"I was so frustrated. Because I know what you're supposed to do. I know where you're supposed to be. And yet, when the shoes were on my feet. I'm like 'Where do I go and what do I do?'" Cummins said. "It was very uncomfortable for me. Even knowing that it was a simulation."

Cummins said she felt like a failure while performing the simulation, and she understood the feeling of those whose reality was reentry and how easy failure is for them.

"You don't know what goes on after you see them out of their public life... People may have kids or elderly parents they're taking care of," said Cummins. "I definitely want to do it again, and I've already had people say they'd like to have their churches do it. I think it would be a really good thing for the churches to do to kind of gain some empathy and understand a little bit better."

Following the simulation, the room held a debriefing session where attendees described how they felt and what strategies they used to stay out of "jail."

Rachel Gallo who worked the transportation table identified herself as an alcoholic and said that she had been living the reality presented in the simulation since she was 18 years old. Now 36, she is sober and has been rebuilding her life following her repeated stints in prison and jail. She found the simulation depressingly accurate.

"Not only do you start with nothing, you've been incarcerated... all your friends do drugs in your house. All your friends are felons. You have no transportation. More than likely you're trying to find housing," said Gallo. "You feel really defeated. It is really hard coming out of that system and trying to get back on your feet along with filling your obligations in your relation to the parole office. Trying to get a job. Getting home by curfew. Getting tested. Pay your restitution. Incorporate your kids back into your life. Pay your child support. All that stuff is really hard.

"I'm not saying it's not doable. I've done it, and I came out the other end of it. But for a lot of people who don't know... where to start and don't have all the resources, it can be really hard."

Many of the participants had fun performing the simulation. The simulation was a bit like a game, and completing all the tasks on time posed a challenge to the more competitive-natured. To Gallo, though, it was far from fun.

"I know there was laughter and it was a good exercise and stuff, but this is real life. The sad part is it kind of broke my heart, because this was my life," said Gallo.

Samantha Shepherd, Region 3 justice program administrator with the division of reentry for the DOC said the intent was to be as accurate as possible.

"I supervise the reentry staff in our region," said Shepherd. "And we have reentry coordinators who are positioned in the communities. We also have reentry coordinators positioned at our (Substance Abuse Program) jails and our prisons... Biggest barriers included housing, transportation, coming up with the money to pay for things like restitution or child support. Rent. Coming up with food. Now we do have an ID program in place, but before when we didn't have that, people had to get released and purchase their own ID's and birth certificates."

Shepherd said she was confident in the leadership of the DOC, and she feels, bit by bit, they are breaking down barriers for those reentering society.

Still, while almost everyone who spoke up at the event felt the simulation was effective—it was only really effective at demonstrating what many of the people there already knew.

Said Administrator Shepherd, "It seems like the people who need to hear this aren't listening."