Reducing Recividism
Reentry and direct financial support work. Instead of spending billions on repeat incarceration, we should be investing in proven reentry solutions that provide housing, job training, and direct financial assistance to people returning home.
Strengthening communities
The biggest driver of recidivism, aside from the system itself, is the lack of access to basic resources after release. People can’t succeed without support for employment, housing, transportation, and food in their first critical months home. Public safety isn’t about locking people up—it’s about creating stability, opportunity, and economic security.
Stimulating the economy
Pew Research Center has suggested that if states could lower recidivism rates by just 10 percent, they could save an average of $635 million annually. We don’t need to spend billions keeping people trapped in cycles of incarceration. Instead, we can invest in proven, evidence-based solutions that promote economic growth.
of people released from prison are rearrested within five years—most for survival-related offenses.
after release, employed individuals were twice as likely to have avoided arrest as their unemployed counterparts.
2011 Justice Quarterly
spent on incarceration could fund tuition-free community college nationwide.
We could send five people to Harvard University for the same price of incarcerating on person for a year in the state of Massachusetts.
Incarceration costs our communities over 1.2 trillion dollars per year. We could end homelessness in the U.S. for less.
The average 1BR apartment in California is $2,155 per month. The average price to share a 6x9 cell in a California prison is $11,093.
8 people could receive CDL training for the same cost of incarcerating one person for a year in federal prison.
We could provide 218 people with $2,550 in reentry assistance for the same price as incarcerating one person in New York State.
