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Trenton,
NJ – Attorney General Anne Milgram
has appointed Wanda H. Moore the director
of the State Re-entry Program, a position
created as part of Governor Jon S. Corzine’s
anti-crime strategy for Safe Streets and
Neighborhoods. She will be taking over from
Shavar Jeffries, Counsel to the Attorney
General, who oversaw the state’s re-entry
efforts during the search for a full-time
director.
Re-entry is part of the Governor’s
three-part strategy to combat gangs and
violent crime in New Jersey, and is aimed
at helping former prisoners become productive
members of their community and deter them
from falling back into a life of crime.
Through the Attorney General’s Office,
the state has pulled together the departments
of corrections and labor and workforce development,
along with the state parole board, to reduce
recidivism rates through education, counseling,
and job training and job readiness programs.
Moore, an attorney and public defender,
was in charge of Newark’s re-entry
initiative, a program designed to remove
barriers that prevent formerly incarcerated
individuals from successfully re-entering
their communities.
In
Newark, Moore led the coordination of employment
and training programs with the city’s
businesses and social service agencies and
with faith-based and community organizations.
She also helped to restructure and strengthen
Opportunity Reconnect, a one-stop center
located at Essex County College for ex-offenders
coming home.
“Wanda
will bring a strong background and depth
of experience to the job as statewide re-entry
director,’’ Attorney General
Milgram said. “Re-entry is an integral
part of the Governor’s strategy to
reduce violent crime in our state. We can’t
just arrest our way out of the problem of
street gangs trafficking in drugs and illegal
guns. We can’t ignore that more than
15,000 adult inmates and juvenile offenders
are released annually in our state from
correctional facilities and the current
high rate of recidivism.’’
“I
am honored by the opportunity and look forward
to the challenge,’’ Moore said.
“Keeping our communities safe and
providing opportunities for those returning
home so they can support and care for themselves
and their families is critical.’’
According
to recent studies, every year in New Jersey
approximately 14,000 adult inmates and 1,600
juvenile offenders are released from correctional
facilities, but 65 percent of adults released
will be re-arrested within five years and
37 percent of juveniles will return to correctional
facilities within two years.
One
of the state’s new re-entry initiatives
– called Another Chance – is
a multi-departmental collaboration involving
the State Parole Board, the Department of
Labor and Workforce Development, and the
Corrections Department. Another Chance provides
comprehensive re-entry services for a group
of more than 1,300 inmates who will be returning
to Newark, Trenton and Camden. These services
include intensive diagnostic assessments
to expanded educational, vocational and
job-coaching programs. In addition to Another
Chance, the state has implemented other
new re-entry programs, including supplemental
transitional and vocational programs for
juvenile offenders, as well as intensive
parole-supervision practices designed to
meet the needs of individual parolees.
Moore,
47, has been the Director of Prisoner Re-entry
in Newark since December 2007. She went
to Newark on leave form the State Office
of the Public Defender, where she was the
director of the Drug Court Office and a
Deputy for the Intensive Supervision Unit,
a post-release community-based program for
ex-offenders, from 2003 to 2007.
Moore
was an Assistant Public Defender in Essex
from 1989 to 2003 where she served as one
of the first Drug Court Public Defenders
in the state. She was instrumental in the
planning and development of the Essex County
Drug Court program.
Moore
graduated from Brown University in 1983
and received her law degree from Northeastern
University School of Law in 1986. She received
a Masters of Education from Lesley University
in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1999. She
clerked for U.S. District Court Judge G.
Donald Haneke in Newark from 1986 to 1987.
Moore
is scheduled to start as the State Re-Entry
Director on September 10.
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