In 2002, 69 sites were awarded funding under the Federal Partner's Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative. This initiative calls for each site to design and implement an efficacious three-part program for the successful reintegration of offenders returning from prison into communities across the United States. The Kansas Department of Corrections and the University of Kansas worked together to design, implement, and evaluate the Kansas program, building into it a boundary spanner: that person who works within and between systems to effect integrated system change. This article explores the role of the boundary spanner in confronting the 21st-century challenges facing corrections and communities. A look at how boundary spanning in Kansas is helping to pave the way to achieving optimal systemic change illustrates its usefulness in reentry efforts.
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