Safe and Sound Campaign for Children and Youth, Inc. Public Safety Compact

Beginning in 2003, the Safe and Sound Campaign established what is now known as the Maryland Opportunity Compact. The Compact uses private sector resources to seed effective strategies that improve lives and reduce the need for last resort public expenditures on efforts such as foster care, juvenile detention, and prison. The initial investment of private funds to launch the Compact strategies demonstrates the savings that can result from more proactive strategies such as drug treatment, case management, and jobs, and acts as leverage to secure the ongoing commitment of the public sector for these initiatives.

Baltimore City is home to two-thirds of the ex-prisoners who are released from Maryland prisons each year (averaging 9,000 returnees to Baltimore City annually). The Maryland Compact for Public Safety (the Public Safety Compact) seeks to help these ex-prisoners to successfully reenter communities in Baltimore City by linking in-patient substance abuse treatment provided by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) to community-based reentry treatment services and effective community supervision by the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation (DPP) for 250 ex-offenders. Participants will have completed substance abuse treatment in prison and will have been released early on parole realizing savings. In collaboration with other private foundations, The Abell Foundation awarded a two-year grant of $500,000 to the Safe and Sound Campaign to support the expanded drug treatment in the community and community-based case management/reentry services of the Public Safety Compact.

The Public Safety Compact model features three tiers of services: in prison, pre-release, and community-based. In prison, services provided by DPSCS include: assessment and screening of substance abuse and other programming needs; a minimum of 12 months of cognitive, behavioral, education, health and mental health services, and/or substance abuse treatment appropriate to the needs of the client in either a therapeutic community or standard outpatient treatment and counseling. These services will be in-kind donations by DPSCS. During the pre-release phase, DPSCS and DPP will work with the community-based provider to transition the client to the community with many appropriate wraparound services including substance abuse treatment provided by Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems (BSAS).

An evaluation of the Compact will focus on outcomes for participants such as drug use, re-arrest, employment, and the gathering of economic data such as cost of treatment, case management and community supervision, and avoidance of the costs of incarceration. If, as expected, the pilot proves successful, the savings will be reinvested into ongoing support and expansion of the Public Safety Compact.