Listen: On Christmas Eve, for Day 46 of 50 in Meet The Need, we get to know Project Return, an organization helping individuals returning from incarceration with their reintegration needs back into society. Throughout the interviews for this campaign, I've heard a number of words I didn't know, usually technical terms specific to a field (I wanted to give a few examples, but unfortunately, words you don't know can be slippery when it comes to recalling them). Above all the others, one word stuck out to me -- "recidivism."
Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior. In the framework basic needs, especially the more extended scheme we've been considering, this is a powerful word in considering where we can find solutions. For a person coming out of prison, they either have no support network or return to their old situation. This is a bleak picture, one almost impossible for an individual to overcome alone. This is where an organization like Project Return comes into play. In these three pieces, Wendel Hruska tells the stories of three folks released from jail and how Project Return helped them get back on their feet: -Lavelia was told on the day she was released that she could not return to her family. She took a taxi to Project Return, and they took her in:
-Released at 12:01am, a man finds himself out on the streets and in the cold. During the night before he found Project Return, he found an unexpected responsibility: