Ultimate Reentry Opportunity

The goal of the Ultimate Reentry Opportunity Initiative is to facilitate the creation of a reentry system that humanizes each reentrant and provides unstigmatized opportunities to obtain optimized health in the process. What very few people understand about the reentry process is the stress and the stigmatization that impacts an individual’s opportunity to successfully navigate the reentry process. We would love to imagine a world where your second chance is an honest second chance. A chance to be regarded as human being throughout the reentry process from arrest to incarceration to their first interaction with social services, to the first job training, for them to lay sleep in a bed they can call their own, to the first day on the job after coming home. Sadly, this is not the case, the criminalization of poverty and the criminalization of race are still factors impacting an individual and the collective success for the reentry population.

The Problem

More than half of the current inmate population at the Tompkins County jail at any given time have recidivated or returned to jail after previously having been incarcerated. African Americans make up less than 4 percent of the population in Tompkins County but are more than 30 percent of the jail population. More than 65% of the county jail population live at or below the poverty index before incarceration. These statistics tell a harrowing story of systemic failure to address the needs of the neediest in our community, who then tragically become the people with the highest recidivism rates. At URO, we work to eliminate systemic barriers to reentry as well as to address and redress the root causes of over incarceration in Tompkins County

Our Approach

Our approach to this work is through the utilization of The Collective Impact Model Approach to systems change. URO was initially established as the Backbone organization to this issue in 2014 but then worked to earn that distinction. We earned this position by first building report, trust and cooperation with likeminded people and organizations to forward the agenda of our motto which is Humans Humanizing Humans. We are working with people in the social service sector, the health and wellness sectors, the employments sector, the education sector, governmental sector, criminal justice sector and the transportation sector. Each of these sectors have significant impact on the service delivery of reentry services as well as the administration of “justice” and are core to addressing the social determinants of health affecting folks in reentry. In bringing these people and organizations together, we work to establish agreement on a common agenda which can only come about after we have thoroughly investigated the issue. In 2018 we started with researching the national landscape for reentry best practices. We followed that up with a local qualitative study of people in reentry and reentry services in Tompkins County which was recently completed. This project was only possible through the collaboration and cooperation with our partners at Cornell University, Ithaca College, the County, REACH Medical and OAR. This study has allowed us to organize summits addressing specific areas and within the summits we develop short term and long-term goals. At every juncture of decision making, we always have the voice of the people impacted by decisions input as part of the process for developing solutions and action steps. We have developed a working group for each of the sectors that we are working to address and key to moving the needle is ongoing and continuous communication between stakeholders and the systems that we are working to change. We as organization’s also support each other to organize and facilitate mutually reinforcing activities that keep us moving in the direction of equity and inclusion.

Our Team

Team Members
Taili Mugambee Program Director
Suzzane Scholten Administrative Assistant
Angelina DeBenedet Administrative Assistant

Keyanna Vann Healthful Transitions Program Coordinator
Temitayo Sanusi-Parkinson Healthful Transitions Program Assistant

Program Interns
Ella Knibb
Netra Shetty
Willow Maisel

URO Advisory Committee
Schelly Michelle-Nunn Committee Chair
Kenneth Schlather Committee Finance Chair
Laura Branca Committee Secretary
Henry Granison Committee Parliamentarian
Sue Robinson Sargent at Arms

Contact information

Taili Mugambee
tm554@cornell.edu