Kirby Mitchell interview with Kate Weaver Patterson
(noted here as KP)- September 2019:

So, give me a brief summary --- what is Root & Rebound? What exactly do you do?

KP: Root & Rebound (R&R) is a national reentry advocacy non-profit organization. It started 6 years ago in Oakland, California, and South Carolina is the first office outside of California. We focus on the reentry process and restoring and protecting rights, dignity, and opportunities for people directly impacted by the criminal justice system. Bottom line--we seek to assist those who have legal barriers arising out of their criminal record. For us, this includes public education, direct legal services, and policy advocacy, so that the law serves, rather than harms, low-income communities and communities of color in the U.S.

Approximately 1 in 3 Americans has a criminal record, disproportionately those who are low income and come from communities of color, so these issues are felt very widely throughout our community.

And what is the “Second Chance Justice Collaborative”?

KP: The Second chance Justice Collaborative (SCJC) is our official program in South Carolina and a commemoration of the partnership between R&R and Soteria Community Development Corporation, based here in Greenville. Soteria was founded twenty years ago by Jerry Blassingame, a Greenville native, who himself was previously incarcerated. Upon getting out of prison, Jerry realized that there were very few services available to those in the reentry process, making it really difficult for people to successfully reintegrate into society and their families. Soteria works to create opportunities for previously incarcerated men to reenter society through transitional housing, life skills, and job training. The men come into the program for up to a year and receive wrap-around services to help bolster their success. One of the programs, Soteria at Work, teaches the men to make really beautiful furniture from reclaimed wood, so people should definitely check it out if they're in the market.

We are particularly excited about the SCJC because the marriage of R&R's nationwide resources and expertise with two Greenville natives driving this forward – Jerry and me – makes for a really unique perspective that is broad but also specifically tailored for South Carolina. My office is located at Soteria, but the SCJC is a statewide organization, and we want to work with partners like South Carolina Legal Services, SC Appleseed, the SC Center for Fathers and Families, the Greenville Medical Legal Partnership (MLP), and others throughout the state to move these issues forward.

You were a prosecutor here in Greenville. Is your legal work with R&R and SCJC civil only, or…?

KP: Can I say yes and no? We call ourselves generalists with a specific focus. What that means is the legal issues we deal with need to arise out of someone's criminal background – that’s the specific focus. But those matters can vary widely in scope, and include issues with employment, housing, civic and voting participation, probation and parole, system-associated fines and fees, and family law, among others. So often once people are ‘system involved,’ it's hard for them to get out, so our work has a nexus to and involvement with the criminal system as well as the civil side. I was at the Solicitor's Office for five years before moving to this work and it's great to have that experience to bring to bear in this area.

Do you plan to lobby as well as provide direct legal services?

KP: As a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, we plan to educate and inform our legislators--on the local and statewide levels--about the need for reform, and to work alongside advocates and directly impacted people across the state to push for change. As part of our direct services and education work, we want people to understand and access their rights, but we also understand that there are some significant policy changes that need to be made to support and empower people with records. We want to be a state of ‘second chances,’ but we can't do this alone. We will need to do so in coalition with groups across the state.

The Greenville community, to include Jerry, our legislative delegation, and the Chamber (among many others), was instrumental in getting the new expungement legislation passed in December 2018. We want to continue to capitalize on the attention being paid to criminal justice reform, and work throughout the state to pass legislation that makes a successful reintegration from prison to society possible, which makes our community stronger as a whole. These are economic issues, family stability issues, and public safety issues. We've seen bipartisan efforts at the state and national level begin to effect some change, and we want to help push those initiatives forward.

Give an ‘real life’ example of a case you’d handle. Describe that –

KP: Last week I met with a client who has never had the opportunity to have a lawyer at his parole hearings, and he has done 24 years in SCDC with absolutely no disciplinary infractions. He teaches in the GED program, mentors other men who are inside. He's looking to get out and restart his life, having gone in to prison at age 18, and he wants to join Soteria's program when he's released, and we're going to help him make the best presentation to the parole board.

Expungement is an area that people are very interested in right now, as they want to take advantage of the new law to make themselves the best possible candidate for a job or housing. We will help someone go through their criminal history, analyze what is eligible for expungement, and walk them through what the process through the Solicitor's Office will be and the associated costs. SC Appleseed and the South Carolina Women's Lawyers Association have worked to put together a great CLE on expungement, which I would highly recommend to practitioners, and we hope to have some wider community clinics where people could volunteer their services.

We've also begun dealing with cases involving potential housing discrimination and employment issues. There is a lot of need, so the sky is the limit with the kinds of cases we will be taking on, even in year one!

What other projects are in the works?

KP: We are currently working on a statewide educational project-- writing a South Carolina Roadmap to Reentry. It's going to be a comprehensive reference guide on the biggest legal barriers we see to reentry. There are between 8,000-10,000 people released from SCDC each year, so even with a staff of 20, we couldn't reach out and directly serve all of those people. The guide is meant to be what we would tell someone if they were able to speak to us directly about a specific issue--getting an ID, restoration of voting rights, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, probation and parole issues, etc.

We're also doing a landscape survey of both services available and existing policy. We want to identify what services are already being provided, the potential partners offering those services, and the ways we can support those partners and fill in gaps so that we are being efficient and effective. We also want to have a firm grasp on where policy currently stands so we can determine where to advocate for change.

You mention ‘filling a gap.’ Who else does this type of work – doesn’t the 13th Circuit Solicitor’s Office help folks with some of this already?

KP: There are partners doing some really exciting work with different areas of reentry – some I've already mentioned (like SC Appleseed, SC Center for Fathers and Families, SCLS, and the ACLU). One way in which we are unique, though, is that our entire focus is on reentry law and on people and families harmed by the ‘war on drugs’ and mass incarceration. We provide direct services to impacted community members in addition to the policy and education work.

Thanks to Jerry and others like him, the social services side of reentry has been growing, but we are catching up on the legal side. So often people in reentry are caught in a gray area--the Solicitor's Offices and Public Defender's Offices handle pending criminal cases, and SCLS is constrained in the areas in which it can serve. We see ourselves as operating in that gray area and filling that gap. It's also important to realize that the latest Justice Index statistics say that South Carolina has one legal aid attorney for every 40,000 people in need so there's a lot of work to be done.

Yikes! 1 for every 40,000… wow… OK, last question: Do you have any sort of infographic / website that provides more info?

KP: People can visit rootandrebound.org and soteriacdc.org to learn more. We have a brief video available at https://vimeo.com/347818423 which describes our work and mission. If anyone is interested in coming to Soteria to take a tour, or in volunteering, I'd love to hear from them. People can email me at kpatterson@rootandrebound.org . Thank you!