Red Lodge Transition Services Supports Native Americans Behind and Beyond the Iron Doors

2024 Pow Wow at the Oregon State Penitentiary

“This is how it should be done. Communities who are most impacted by incarceration should be supported and mentored to create programs that address their specific behavioral health issues. Programs supporting communities of color are more successful when they are able to employ skilled individuals who look like and are familiar with the population they are serving. Oregon needs more culturally specific programs!” - Executive Director of Red Lodge Transition Services Trish Jordan, RN, BSN

Native Americans are over-incarcerated across the U.S., incarcerated at a rate 38% higher than the national average. In Oregon, Native Americans are approximately 2% of the population, yet they make up at least 4% of the prison population.

In 2006, a small group of Native American Religious Service volunteers for the Oregon Department of Corrections were tired of seeing disparate numbers of Native brothers and sisters cycling through the judicial system. They decided to do something about it and started their own culturally specific reentry program, prioritizing women releasing from jails, prisons and treatment centers. Since founding Red Lodge Transition Services, Red Lodge volunteers continue to provide culturally specific programming behind the Iron Doors, as passionate volunteers for the Oregon Department of Corrections. Volunteers provide sweat lodge ceremonies, smudging, talking circles, first foods ceremonies, pow wows, Wellbriety, Positive Indian Parenting and more to over 1,500 Adults in custody annually, which is about 8% of the Oregon prison population.

Culturally specific programming is incredibly important. Interacting with people who have shared experiences and have successfully overcome similar obstacles makes a huge difference in creating trust and hope for a better future. When people in prison reconnect with their community and their community’s traditional practices, it increases the likelihood they’ll reenter society successfully and not repeat the same mistakes.

But Red Lodge Transition Services doesn’t stop at the work they do inside of Oregon’s prisons. They also support Native Americans as they transition from prison, jails and treatment centers back into their communities. For example, Red Lodge has a transition house where Native American women can live and thrive while they work on preparing for jobs, building life skills and finding long-term housing. In particular, they’ve supported women reuniting with their children.

“Housing is our biggest void,” said Trish Jordan, Executive Director of Red Lodge. “It’s the most valuable resource we can provide for people.”

Currently, 80% of Red Lodge’s services are directed toward women. With Justice Reinvestment Equity Program funding, Red Lodge chose to build their capacity and focus on establishing a men’s program, including a transition house for men.

For a long time, Trish was Red Lodge’s only full-time staff member. With funding from JREP, Red Lodge has been bolstering their HR infrastructure and recently hired a men’s program director and a much needed volunteer coordinator. With JREP funding and capacity building support from Latino Coalition for Community Leadership, Red Lodge is strengthening their relationship with the Oregon Department of Corrections, increasing the number of people they’re able to serve and advancing the sustainability of their organization.

This is what Trish wants Oregonians, especially legislators, to know: “Investing in culturally supportive reentry is worth the investment! We’re spending $73,000 per year to incarcerate one person. That’s up 39% from 2018. And if adults in custody have health care issues, it can cost the state of Oregon a phenomenal amount of money to medically treat that person behind bars, rather than treat them within the community. $73,000 per year, that’s enough to support one FTE for most non profit organizations. Sending someone BACK to prison is even more expensive. Incarceration is not what we should be spending our money on. 95% of the folks we work with have substance use disorder, and many of them have co-occurring disorders. We need to be addressing behavioral health and social ills. Unresolved trauma contributes to most people’s substance use disorder; it's the most common variable that leads people down the path to incarceration. We need to be helping people, not harming them.”

Thanks so much to Trish and Red Lodge Transition Services for their important work! Learn more on the Red Lodge website.