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People newly released from prison are facing a major problem: suicide and suicidal ideation.

Now nonprofit and for-profit organizations that deal both with mental health issues and with the welfare of the formerly incarcerated are boosting efforts to offer services and resources to help ensure an easier transition to life after prison.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the several weeks after people are released from prison, along with drug overdoses and homicide, according to Wanda Bertram, a communication strategist at Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization based in Massachusetts that researches and advocates for criminal-justice reform. Efforts by New Jersey nonprofits and their partner organizations to offer effective resources have been years in the making but have gained new urgency in the wake of COVID-19 and an ongoing statewide mental health crisis.

Over half the people in state prisons report mental health problems, but only one in four has received professional help while incarcerated, according to Prison Policy Initiative.

“Facing Suicide,” a national PBS documentary premiering this evening, looks at the growing suicide crisis for the formerly incarcerated and their families.

“Suicide touches virtually every demographic group in the U.S., and rates have increased significantly since the late 1990s,” Michael Rosenfeld, the project lead and executive producer of the documentary, said in a statement. “But experts have learned a lot about suicide in the past few years, offering insights that suggest new strategies for prevention. We explore the latest discoveries in our film, woven together with inspiring stories of hope and recovery.”

Transformative Justice Initiative, a for-profit organization that helps people reentering society after serving lengthy prison sentences, was started by Ibrahim Sulaimani and Antonne Henshaw. The two friends met in a state prison in 2004 and started the organization in 2019, according to northjersey.com and Sulaimani.

Reentry after decades in prison

Sulaimani, who served 30 years in prison, said once he got home, nobody was doing anything to help people who had served long sentences. “We didn’t find people of our ilk, reaching out to us, telling us how it was to be free after so long,” Sulaimani said. “The first things they did, the first steps they took, how to do certain things,” he added.

Sulaimani said that through his 30 years in prison, he never saw suicide as a way out, until his last 40 days. “I’m looking out the window and I’m just so fearful of what I’m about to encounter that I began to think maybe suicide might be  something to consider to counter those fears … because I didn’t want to come home and be unsuccessful,” he said. “That was my greatest fear, was letting my family down, not being successful, not finding a good job that would pay me a living wage.”

When he came home, his aunts, his brother and his mother helped him with everything, including getting a social security card, a nondriver’s ID, his birth certificate, as well as learning how to take the bus, the train and get around the neighborhood, he said.

“But there was this burden on me of just adjusting as a free person,” he said. “Certain fears, like, ‘Will I fit in the workplace once I do find a job?’” he said. He also wondered how he would socialize with people who had not been convicted. “And that put a lot of pressure on my back. It was very, very burdensome and created a lot of anxiety.”

Sulaimani’s aunt, Kathy, noticed some of his anxieties from readjusting to life after prison and helped him to enroll in a mental health clinic through Rutgers Health. He received services for about a year and then came to realize that this level of support is what a lot of other people are going to need who are coming home after serving long prison sentences.

Sulaimani said he does not offer mental health services himself through the Transformative Justice Initiative but directs people to where they could go to get services if they choose. “I pretty much … use my lived experiences to let people know and let people see that it’s not a bad thing to seek mental health (and) that you probably do suffer from mental health after being locked up for so long.”

The New Jersey Reentry Corp. and Volunteers of America Delaware Valley are two other organizations that offer reentry services to people after they are released from prison.

A ‘labyrinth’ of services

“We have an entire labyrinth of services that’s responsive to the needs of our program participants that provides for response and in cases of suicide and then suicidal ideation, and then to stabilize the patient, then to provide for long-term residential treatment, then intensive outpatient with support of medication and ongoing psychiatric intervention,” said Jim McGreevey, the former governor who now serves as executive director of the New Jersey Reentry Corp.

McGreevey said that 42% to 44% of program participants have a history of mental illness and that there is a close relationship between mental illness, addiction and the trauma of incarceration. He added that prison is a heavily regulated culture which to a substantial degree negates self-will and self-agency and “to go from that for 24 months let alone 24 years, to then being released and … forcibly having to make a cascade of immediate decisions can become immediately overwhelming and a source of confusion and depression.”

The New Jersey Reentry Corp. has relationships with partners that offer suicide prevention services, McGreevey said. It serves as an umbrella organization for the Governor’s Reentry Training and Employment Center, Community Resource Center, Veterans Justice Outreach Initiative and Francine A. LeFrak Wellness Center.

The Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, based in Camden, also offers services and mental health support to individuals reentering society after being imprisoned. One of these groups is called the Program for Returning Offenders with Mental Illness Safely and Effectively (PROMISE). It offers a residential treatment program with transitional and permanent supportive housing for men and women who are on parole and have chronic mental illness, according to a fact sheet provided on the nonprofit’s website.

Women in the PROMISE program are in a residential placement called the Garrett House and are referred to Volunteers of America through the New Jersey State Parole Board, according to Charles Thomas, the vice president for reentry services. There are 39 men housed in the PROMISE program, where they are connected to mental health services, Thomas said. “Those people that have had … long histories of mental illness have resources that they were connected to prior to being incarcerated, and we reconnect them to those services if they’re still capable of connecting with them,” he said. PROMISE is one of about 40 different programs offered by the nonprofit, according to Daniel L. Lombardo, the president and CEO of Volunteers of America Delaware Valley.

Volunteers of America Delaware Valley also offers services for people experiencing homelessness and other specialized services including intellectual disabilities and a neuro-cognitive disorder program, according to their website.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of locally produced content created for “Facing Suicide,” a national PBS documentary. WNET, the parent organization for NJ Spotlight News, was one of 10 stations awarded a grant by Twin Cities Public Television to produce local suicide prevention content in support of the new documentary. It is using the project as an opportunity to focus on suicide and suicide prevention among currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, with an emphasis on ties to family and community. As part of the initiative, WNET plans to host a virtual town hall to highlight the stories and issues explored in the locally produced video content and national documentary.