A chance for change : community influence on successful reentry in rural Washington

Washington State is at the forefront of criminal justice reform; and yet, reentry for incarcerated individuals into society gains little attention in research and in practice. In this paper, I conduct a case study of Chances for Change, a small, non-profit, comprehensive reentry service serving two counties in Washington State. I examine what social forces have allowed for the development and sustainment of this reentry service in rural Washington. The ultimate goal of this research is to identify how community context has shaped organizational success, ultimately informing future work in Washington State reentry services. The results of 18 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in Chances for Change revealed that while a variety of social forces came together to create the context in which Chances for Change operates, community context as a whole mattered greatly to the success of the organization.