Draft:Reentry Working Group

The Reentry Working Group advocates to secure robust federal policy and funding for programs to assist formerly incarcerated individuals and/or people with criminal legal histories in achieving long-term reentry success, including supporting themselves and their families, and engaging with their communities. Policy areas covered by the Reentry Working Group are diverse, but include workforce development; housing; health care, including substance use disorder and mental health treatment; education; nutrition assistance and income support; voting rights; and reducing collateral consequences of conviction. The Reentry Working Group regularly engages Congress as well as the Administration, including the White House and Departments of Justice, Labor, Education, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, and Small Business Administration.

Sometimes the Reentry Working Group engages in “rapid response” to quickly react against negative amendments on reentry or collateral consequences issues that arise in a wide range of bills under consideration by Congress. Such policies, if enacted, would adversely impact people with criminal legal histories and jeopardize their reentry success. The Reentry Working Group has successfully overcome such amendments, including those that would have reduced access to educational benefits, nutrition assistance programs, and support for business owners, to name

Breon Wells
Breon Wells is a policy advisor, impact strategist, thought leader, public speaker, and author. He is President and Founder of The Daniel Initiative (TDI), a government relations and strategic communications firm that specifically serves underrepresented and underserved populations in public policy spaces. A former Congressional Aide on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Breon is a national security policy specialist. While on SASC, he provided legislative support to the Investigations Team (detainee abuse), the Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee, and the Foreign Affairs Team (particularly African and Asian geopolitics). TDI continues to assist clients in navigating the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and other national security issues. Breon works with nonprofits, corporations, activists, and influencers to develop public policy and advocacy programs in the areas of criminal justice reform, voting rights, foreign relations, cyber security, and national security.

Danielle Neal
Danielle Neal serves as Senior Policy Counsel for Collier Collective, where she helps to lead its criminal legal system reform and youth justice advocacy. Danielle’s focus has included increasing federal funding for critical programs in the labor as well as criminal and youth justice appropriations bills. Through these annual spending bills, Danielle has advocated for and secured federal funding increases on behalf of workforce development and reentry programs serving individuals with criminal legal histories, innocence and forensic science programs remediating and preventing wrongful convictions, and harm reduction programs providing life-saving overdose prevention services.

Prior to joining Collier Collective, Danielle served as a law clerk for the DC Public Housing Authority and spent her time in law school as a legal advocate on domestic violence issues for Legal Aid of DC Family Law Division and with the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She also served as a legislative intern for Congressman Dave Loebsack (D-IA-02).

Christopher Scott
Christopher Scott is the acting Team Manager for Cities Initiative for Open Society which is focused on democratizing education, policing, and reparative justice. Chris promotes policy initiatives for Open Society on criminal justice, police reform and youth reentry, and convenes the Federal School Discipline and Climate Coalition (FedSDC), a coalition working to advance police free schools while implementing effective, non-punitive, and culturally-sustaining practices in schools and alternatives to school discipline. In addition to his leadership and role within FedSDC, Christopher also Co-chairs the Reentry Working Group, a coalition working on transformational change in the U.S. without a focus on punitive or carceral remedies or reentry solutions reliant on law enforcement.

Christopher previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the Open Society Foundations Washington D.C. Office (The Open Society Policy Center) where he focused on criminal, civil, and racial justice. Specifically, Christopher advocated for educational equity, reducing disparities, strengthening family structures, and increasing economic opportunity for vulnerable populations, co-convened the Justice Roundtable, a coalition working to reform the U.S. justice system, and promoted policy initiatives for OSF’s School to Prison Pipeline, Education, Equality, Criminal Justice portfolios, and Campaign for Black Male Achievement (CBMA). During his tenure at Open Society, Christopher was seconded to serve as one of the first Senior Policy Advisors for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans and helped to lead the Federal Reentry Interagency Council.

Christopher is an education, racial equity, and youth justice expert, with extensive political and policy expertise and leadership. Christopher focuses his expertise on school discipline, climate, and student well-being, with an intentional emphasis on race and educational equity. An avid public scholar and leader, Christopher is passionate about supporting students, youth and children, advocates, community organizers, and directly impacted families and individuals in using research to support equity-oriented change for racial and social justice in schools and districts. He has worked with several Administrations (2008-Present), lawmakers, federal agencies, federal and state policy coalitions to inform evidenced-based policy language and policy recommendations on school discipline and climate, with a focus on creating inclusive, affirming, and sustaining school environments for Black students. Christopher has worked with youth and community organizers to promote the use of research evidence as part of larger education justice campaigns. Much of this work has focused on efforts to end the school-to-prison pipeline.

Prior to joining the Foundations, Christopher served as youth policy analyst for the Center for Law and Social Policy, where he worked on policies affecting disconnected youth and the Black Men and Boys 2025 campaign and managed the Communities Collaborating to Reconnect Youth Network. Christopher also served as a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation legislative fellow for Congressman Bobby Scott, where he was the chief staffer responsible for the congressman’s legislative agenda on K–12 education.

Christopher attended Oregon State University on a football scholarship where he earned a BA in political science, a MA in public policy, and a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies.

Access to Health Care
The Reentry Working Group advocates for and supports legislation which would make it easier for states to provide effective health care services, promote smoother transitions from incarceration to community-based care, and reduce risk of overdose and other serious, life-threatening health issues post-release.

Budget & Appropriations
The Reentry Working Group follows this process very closely each year and supports member organizations in advocating on the behalf of a wide range of federal programs that support reentry and related services at the federal, state, and local level.

Collateral Consequences
The Reentry Working Group advocates for Congress and federal agencies to eliminate, reduce, and/or remediate existing collateral consequences as well as prevent the implementation of new ones in the areas of education, nutrition assistance, voting rights, health care, financial and business issues, housing, and more.

Food Security
The Reentry Working Group works to help ensure that people with criminal legal histories and/or who are returning from incarceration have access to food and basic support.

Housing
The Reentry Working Group advocates for increased housing access before both Congress and the Administration and has made specific recommendations for remediating barriers to housing and increasing funding to expand housing opportunities for individuals who are reentering. It also advocates against federal policies and programs that reduce access to housing for people with criminal legal histories.

Voting Rights
The Reentry Working Group urges support and implementation of federal voting rights restoration policies for individuals with criminal legal histories who have been disenfranchised.

Workforce Development
The Reentry Working Group supports increasing federal support of reentry and workforce development programs to expand access to training and certification for career-path, skilled employment, including for industries with persistent worker shortages.