Twenty-seven years ago, Emily Westerholm was briefly incarcerated and put on probation for a year. 

In her early 20s at the time, Westerholm went on to finish school, but the experience stuck with her and she soon turned back to the carceral system—this time as a counselor and aid for people in jail and prison, or on their way out. 

In Virginia, she ran a reentry program to help prisoners rejoin society after being incarcerated. When she and her family moved to Gainesville, she knew there was no such program in the area and arrived with a plan to start one. 

“To me, it’s not about necessarily getting bigger,” Westerholm said in a phone interview. “It’s more about doing things right and intentionally, so for me, success would come not only with individual anecdotal stories of people whose lives are changing because of the support they had, but also… reducing stigma, reducing recidivism, interrupting that revolving door of incarceration.” 

Westerholm founded Released, the reentry program she now heads as executive director, in spring of 2023. For the majority of that time, she has worked from a 100-square-foot, single-room office, taking calls and referring newly released prisoners to other services. 

During its first year of existence, Released was limited to a focus on therapeutic groups inside the jail, and steering people to other resources. Westerholm did not have the funding to provide services of her own, or even to pay herself for her time. 

The program’s future shifted when the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners decided to shut down its work release program, and Commissioner Anna Prizzia said she pushed to use some of that program’s funding to help reintegrate prisoners into society through a more comprehensive reentry program. 

The county issued a request for proposal, and Westerholm applied. Prizzia said Released’s experience and established work in the community helped make it the successful bidder for the funding. 

County staff was to work with the new reentry hub on a budget that suits its needs, including start-up costs as needed, plus recurring expenditures estimated at $500,000. 

In the 2023 financial year, Released brought in $21,200 in revenue and spent $9,615, according to Philanthropy Hub. The program’s revenue for the fiscal year running July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025 is projected to reach $504,000, with $495,000 in expenses. 

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and Florida has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, with approximately 330,000 people under correctional supervision in Florida in 2020, according to the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. 

Prizzia said the topic is personal to her, because she has a family member who was incarcerated, and she watched his struggle in coming out of the system. She said the issue also weighs on her as a county commissioner because the county runs the jail, so she feels responsible for the county’s carceral system, and supporting a way out of it. 

“I think that what Released is going to be able to do is… help people navigate through the ‘have tos’ of coming out of the carceral system,” Prizzia said in an interview. “At the same time, they’re going to provide that support, the sort of mental health support and community that I think will really help people to thrive and to realize that they’re not alone and that they can actually reconnect to our community and be a productive and healthy and thriving part of our community.” 

Leigh Scott, Released’s director of community outreach, said when incarcerated people are released, they can get overwhelmed with necessities such as getting identification, housing and employment, leaving mental health and trauma unchecked. He said the 18-month mark is usually when people relapse into bad decisions. 

“It’s because you came home and you’re running on adrenaline and you didn’t do the mental health side of that,” Scott told a tour group during an open house for the new facility at 4104 NW 13th St. last week. 

The new facility also has community spaces, outdoor and indoor, and people who choose to participate in Released’s programming receive a year of free mental health support. 

With its expanded facility and funding, the program will be able to provide pre- and post-release services to ease the transition, including computer help, support groups and counseling, as well as basic necessities such as clothing, hygiene kits and birth certificates. 

Released has also hired six employees since receiving the grant, whom Westerholm said have lived experience to come at the job already trauma-informed. 

On its website, Released boasts of its diverse board of directors with direct experience in and around the carceral system, “through personal incarceration, hundreds of visits to friends and family, and as volunteers.” 

“We looked for people that were invested in an authentic way… we really try to meet people where they’re at. And we’ve been very fortunate to get a pretty amazing staff,” Westerholm said. 

In its first year and a half, even with limited resources, Released has facilitated 19 public collaborative meetings for justice-impacted people, seven peer support groups and has visited the Alachua County Jail 104 times to provide therapeutic groups, substance use workshops and one-on-one resource navigation, according to Scott. 

Scott said the program has engaged in participant interactions 1,462 times to support community members affected by the justice system. 

Westerholm said she is excited to increase one-on-one interactions with the people Released helps, giving them a feeling of community and acceptance. She said people face a lot of stigma when they are coming out of prison or jail, which is just one more weight in an already overwhelming transition from incarcerated life to the normal world. 

“People [come] here, and maybe when they walk in the door, they just look really broken, like most people who come out of incarceration,” Westerholm said. “And then when they leave, there’s some hope, there’s some optimism, and someone has actually taken the time to hear them and try to guide them through navigating how complicated it can be.”