Justice & The Next 250: Small State Insights on the Future of Criminal Justice in America

By Mark Renick (Leading with Conviction™ 2018)

I feel blessed to work supporting those leaving incarceration daily in the state of Idaho. We face many challenges to make the process smoother for those who follow professionals like myself, but I love the challenge and calling.

My name is Mark Renick. I like to introduce myself as a “consumer of correctional services.” My agency works with a coalition of organizations including nonprofits, community-based groups, and state entities to call attention to the need to look closer at how we treat individual who become involved with the criminal justice system.

My state has historically just locked people up in huge numbers. That trend continues as I write this, but there seems to be hope for the chance to make changes. The key to making that a reality in my state seems to be educating the general public.

How do we do that? We need to show that those who reside in our prisons are people just like we interact with daily! 98% of residents locked in our state system will return to the community. We need to show Idahoans that reality.

Those with a background in criminal justice should be the loudest voices working on solutions.

Making the transition back to community successfully is the key to this education. We link with the Idaho Department of Correction to educate those about to leave about the options for planning for a future life after incarceration. In the 12 years of my effort, I am starting to see a change for the better in this process. We are making progress!

In addition, we have to keep the data needed to show politicians that our work is having an impact in the state. Only then will they be open to looking at ways to consider systemic change to the process. Shout out in all formats the need for Idahoans to consider change. Articles, podcasts, and speaking engagements where we share not just the cost of incarceration, but the emotional toll incarceration takes on families and those who love people who are incarcerated.

We need to make this movement popular and keep it in the public eye whenever possible. That charge should be directed by those previously incarcerated who remain removed from decision-making situations. That is a national truth that is very much a reality in Idaho. Those with a background in criminal justice should be the loudest voices working on solutions. Six months ago I was inside Idaho State Correctional Center listening to a presentation by one of our staff inside the system when he used the quote, “People closest to the problem are closest to the solution, but furthest from power and resources.” Chris—who has been incarcerated for 30 years, since the age of 18—did not know who he was quoting.

Later, I was able to give him that information and send him a coffee mug from JustLeadershipUSA founder Glenn E. Martin. At that moment, it made me see how important the work I do is for change here in Idaho. It reinforces the hard work and support from folks like JLUSA, Douglass Project, Idaho Justice Project, and Prison Fellowship.

We are looking to build a foundation for the next 250 years in which those involved in the criminal justice system are able to use the process to become the next leaders of the country.

There has been progress here in Idaho. Our work has a major impact in prerelease and support for those leaving our state institutions. We currently have four staff working daily inside those facilities. Two of those residents are on our payroll and living inside the system in one of the minimum custody community reentry facilities. We have grown to 14 staff serving those who leave the Idaho system from the Kuna Prison Complex each day. The services include rides from First Day Out (for those who have nobody to pick them up), linking them to needed resources at our offices in Boise and Caldwell, ongoing employment counseling (statewide), and the knowledge that we will be there in the future for support with the transition to community by staff who have been incarcerated themselves. This effort would never had been an option 15 years ago when I was released. We have become an unfunded full partner with the Idaho State Department of Correction.

Idaho looks to follow the direction of “Coach D” (DeAnna Hoskins), “I don’t follow trends, I build systems that create legacy.”

We are looking to build a foundation for the next 250 years in which those involved in the criminal justice system are able to use the process to become the next leaders of the country.

Mark Renick (Leading with Conviction 2018) currently serves as the Program Manager for Reentry Services at St. Vincent de Paul Southwest Idaho.

Published in partnership with the Justice & The Next 250 campaign