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Prison Reform

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Published: Mar 13, 2024

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Getting the Insight Out

Rehabilitation Over Retribution: Reforming the Prison System

This article is part of a broader month-long series on prison reform. Check  here  for other articles in the series.

Irish playwright and political activist George Bernard Shaw once wrote : “Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.” The idea that prisons are intended to lead to eventual rehabilitation and reintegration into society is challenged by the fact that the focus has long been far more on punishment than any more positive notions. Why should we reform the prison system to better correct and rehabilitate the criminal, and how might we achieve this?

Firstly, we must consider whether the promotion of deterrence and reformation of the criminal over vengeance is a worthwhile goal. There is a disconnect between the desire to achieve these more positive ideals and the understanding that prison is intended, at least in part, to be a punitive measure. The four goals of prison are rehabilitation, incapacitation, retribution, and deterrence. Many of these are obviously at odds with one another. In particular, rehabilitation — helping the offender reintegrate into society and reform their character — contradicts the objective of retribution, achieved by removing the offender from society and imposing hardships upon them. Accordingly, the goals of rehabilitation and deterrence within the prison system are often only modestly pursued.

A 2016 study by the Brookings Institution found that 77 per cent of released prisoners in the United States had been rearrested within five years of their release. Additionally, a 2018 analysis found the unemployment rate among the formerly incarcerated to be 27 per cent, higher than the total unemployment rate at any point in U.S. history, including during the Great Depression. The current prison system prioritizes vengeance above the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders into society. While this may have merit in the sense that justice for the victims of crimes can be retributive, prisons ought to focus on more than retribution alone.

For one thing, a system that prioritizes rehabilitation and deterrence is undeniably more humane. In the United States alone, on any given day 450,000 people are in prison for nonviolent drug crimes. It is one thing to prioritize vengeance for violent criminal behavior, but to lock nonviolent offenders away and deny them opportunities for rehabilitation, such as education and training programs, is careless and cruel. Providing better support for prisoners also makes sense from this standpoint considering their composition. People with mental illness or substance abuse problems are overrepresented in the prison population. For example, in the United Kingdom, 90 per cent of the prison population suffers from mental health problems. To focus primarily on punitive measures rather than addressing these root causes, or issues correlated with crime, is morally reprehensible.

Even outside of the argument of humaneness, it is practical to pursue objectives beyond vengeance. Between systems that send more people to prison (retributive) and those that utilize non-prison community sentences (rehabilitative), the former sees both a smaller deterrent effect and a much higher economic cost.  Imprisonment must have an objective beyond simple retribution for its undertaking to be worthwhile. English philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that “all punishment in itself is evil. Upon the principle of utility… it ought only to be admitted in as far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.” If the extreme prioritization of vengeance precludes deterrence and obstructs rehabilitation, then it is both a practical and a moral failure.

Prisons should serve as centres of reform and rehabilitation. How then can prison systems be reformed to more fully pursue these goals?

Both within and outside of prison, there is more that needs to be done to effect rehabilitative efforts. Within prisons, possible reforms include the prioritization of education initiatives, as well as behavioural approaches intended to address the psychological causes of crime. Additionally, more funding to address mental health and other risk factors such as addiction within prisons would go a long way in making these systems more humane and effective in achieving goals outside of retribution.

There is also more that needs to be done outside of prison itself. A poor societal support system, barriers to employment, and restrictions on civic participation mean that punishment often persists even once a sentence ends. Rehabilitation, then, cannot exist and end only within the prison system itself. One notable example of a current post-prison rehabilitation effort is the Homecoming Project in Oakland, California. The program provides released felons with housing in community members’ spare rooms. From this stable environment and with help seeking employment, former convicts may be more fully reintegrated into society. Post-prison efforts must be a part of rehabilitation considerations for them to be complete and attainable.

Though the focus of many modern prison systems is primarily retributive, shifting focus toward rehabilitation would benefit not only the individuals imprisoned, but also society at large. With concerted effort, hopefully we may begin to see prison systems around the world which are more able to achieve the objectives of deterrence and reformation of the criminal rather than simply vengeance.

Edited by Neelesh Thakur .

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Studies or the Political Science Students’ Association.

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Reflections on Criminal Justice Reform: Challenges and Opportunities

Pamela k. lattimore.

RTI International, 3040 East Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27703 USA

Associated Data

Data are cited from a variety of sources. Much of the BJS data cited are available from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research. The SVORI data and the Second Chance Act AORDP data are also available from NACJD.

Considerable efforts and resources have been expended to enact reforms to the criminal justice system over the last five decades. Concerns about dramatic increases in violent crime beginning in the late Sixties and accelerating into the 1980s led to the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Crime” that included implementation of more punitive policies and dramatic increases in incarceration and community supervision. More recent reform efforts have focused on strategies to reduce the negative impacts of policing, the disparate impacts of pretrial practices, and better strategies for reducing criminal behavior. Renewed interest in strategies and interventions to reduce criminal behavior has coincided with a focus on identifying “what works.” Recent increases in violence have shifted the national dialog from a focus on progressive reforms to reduce reliance on punitive measures and the disparate impact of the legal system on some groups to a focus on increased investment in “tough on crime” criminal justice approaches. This essay offers some reflections on the “Waged Wars” and the efforts to identify “What Works” based on nearly 40 years of work evaluating criminal justice reform efforts.

The last fifty-plus years have seen considerable efforts and resources expended to enact reforms to the criminal justice system. Some of the earliest reforms of this era were driven by dramatic increases in violence leading to more punitive policies. More recently, reform efforts have focused on strategies to reduce the negative impacts of policing, the disparate impacts of pretrial practices, and better strategies for reducing criminal behavior. Renewed interest in strategies and interventions to reduce criminal behavior has coincided with a focus on identifying “what works.” Recent increases in violence have shifted the national dialog about reform. The shift may be due to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 epidemic or concerns about the United States returning to the escalating rise in violence and homicide in the 1980s and 1990s. Whichever proves true, the current rise of violence, at a minimum, has changed the tenor of policymaker discussions, from a focus on progressive reforms to reduce reliance on punitive measures and the disparate impact of the legal system on some groups to a focus on increased investment in “tough on crime” criminal justice approaches.

It is, then, an interesting time for those concerned about justice in America. Countervailing forces are at play that have generated a consistent call for reform, but with profound differences in views about what reform should entail. The impetus for reform is myriad: Concerns about the deaths of Black Americans by law enforcement agencies and officers who may employ excessive use of force with minorities; pressures to reduce pretrial incarceration that results in crowded jails and detention of those who have not been found guilty; prison incarcerations rates that remain the highest in the Western world; millions of individuals who live under community supervision and the burden of fees and fines that they will never be able to pay; and, in the aftermath of the worst pandemic in more than a century, increasing violence, particularly homicides and gun violence. This last change has led to fear and demands for action from communities under threat, but it exists alongside of other changes that point to the need for progressive changes rather than reversion to, or greater investment in, get-tough policies.

How did we get here? What have we learned from more than 50 years of efforts at reform? How can we do better? In this essay, I offer some reflections based on my nearly 40 years of evaluating criminal justice reform efforts. 1

Part I: Waging “War”

The landscape of criminal justice reform sits at the intersection of criminal behavior and legal system response. Perceptions of crime drive policy responses. Perceptions of those responsible for crime also drive responses. And perceptions of those responses result in demands for change. To establish context for the observations that follow, this section describes trends in crime, the population of justice-involved individuals, and the expenditures supporting the sprawling criminal justice enterprise in the United States since the mid-to-late twentieth century.

But first, my perspective: Over the last nearly 40 years, I have observed justice system reform efforts since working, while a first-year graduate student in 1983, on a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) grant that funded a randomized control trial of what would now be termed a reentry program (Lattimore et al., 1990 ). After graduate school, I spent 10 years at NIJ, where I was exposed to policy making and the relevance of research for both policy and practice. I taught for several years at a university. And, for most of my career, I have been in the trenches at a not-for-profit social science research firm. Throughout my career, I have conducted research and evaluation on a broad array of topics and have spent most of my time contemplating the challenges of reform. I’ve evaluated single programs, large federal initiatives, and efforts by philanthropies to effect reform. I’ve used administrative data to model criminal recidivism to address—to the degree statistical methods allow—various dimensions of recidivism (type, frequency, and seriousness). I’ve developed recidivism models for the practical purpose of assessing risk for those on community supervision and to explore the effects of covariates and interventions on recidivism and other outcomes. I’ve participated in research attempting to understand the shortcomings of and potential biases in justice data and the models that must necessarily use those data. While most of my work has focused on community corrections (e.g., probation and post-release interventions and behavior) and reentry, I have studied jail diversion programs, jail and pretrial reform, and efforts focused on criminal record expungement. These experiences have illuminated for me that punitiveness is built into the American criminal justice system—a punitiveness that traps many people from the time they are first arrested until they die.

Crime and Correctional Population Trends

The 1960s witnessed a dramatic rise in crime in the United States, and led to the so-called “War on Crime,” the “War on Drugs,” and a variety of policy responses, culminating with the passage of the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-in-Sentencing Act of 1994 (“The 1994 Crime Act”; Pub. L. 103–322). Figure  1 shows the violent crime rate in the United States from 1960 to 1994. 2 In 1960, the violent crime rate in the United States was 161 per 100,000 people; by 1994 the rate had increased more than four-fold to nearly 714 per 100,000. 3 As can be seen, the linear trend was highly explanatory (R-square = 0.96)—however, there were two obvious downturns in the trend line—between 1980 and 1985 and, perhaps, between 1991 and 1994.

US Violent Crime Rate, 1960–1994

Homicides followed a similar pattern. Figure  2 shows the number of homicides each year between 1960 and 1994. In 12 years (1960 to 1972), the number of homicides doubled from 9,100 to 18,670. By 1994, the number had grown to 23,330—but it is worth noting that there were multiple downturns over this period, including a drop of more than 4,000 between 1980 and 1984. These figures show the backdrop to the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Crime” that led reformers to call for more punitive sentencing, including mandatory minimum sentences, “three-strikes laws” that mandated long sentences for repeat offenders, and truth-in-sentencing statutes that required individuals to serve most of their sentences before being eligible for release. This was also the period when the 1966 Bail Reform Act, which sought to reduce pretrial detention through the offer of money bond, was supplanted in 1984 by the Pretrial Reform Act, which once again led to increased reliance on pretrial detention.

United States Murder and Non-negligent Manslaughter Rate, 1960–1994

The 1994 Crime Act, enacted during the Clinton Administration, continued the tough-on-crime era by enabling more incarceration and longer periods of incarceration that resulted in large increases in correctional populations. In particular, the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-in-Sentencing (VOI/TIS) Incentive Grant Program, funded by the Act, provided $3 billion to states to expand their jail and prisons capacities between FY1996 and FY2001 and to encourage states to eliminate indeterminate sentencing in favor of laws that required individuals to serve at least 85% of their imposed sentences.

Figure  3 shows the dramatic rise in the number of state and federal prisoners prior to passage of the 1994 Crime Act—the number of prisoners more than tripled between 1980 and 1994. 4 The increase in numbers of prisoners was not due to shifts from jail to prison or from probation to prison, given that all correctional populations increased dramatically over this 14-year period—jail populations increased 164% (183,988 to 486,474), probation increased 166% (1,118,097 to 2,981,022), and parole increased 213% (220,438 to 690,371).

State and Federal Prisoners in the US, 1960–1994

So, what happened after passage of the 1994 Crime Act? Fig.  4 shows the violent crime rate from 1960 through 2020. As can be seen, the decrease in the violent crime rate that began prior to passage of the 1994 Crime Act continued. And, notably, it preceded the influx of federal funding to put more police on the streets, build more jails and prisons, and place more individuals into the custody of local, state, and federal correctional agencies. Even with a small increase between 2019 and 2020, the violent crime rate in 2020 was 398.5 per 100,000 individuals, well below its 1991 peak of 758.2. 5

United States Violent Crime Rate (violent crimes per 100,000 population), 1960–2020

Figure  5 shows the US homicide rate from 1960 to 2020. Consistent with the overall violent crime rate, the homicide rate in 2020 remained well below the peak of 10.2 that occurred in 1981. (Rates also may have risen in 2021—as evidenced by reports of large increases in major U.S. cities—but an official report of the 2021 number and rate for the U.S. was not available as of the time of this writing.) The rise in this rate from 2019 to 2020 was more than 27%— worthy of attention and concern. It represents the largest year-over-year increase between 1960 and 2020. However, there have been other years where the rate increased about 10% (1966, 1967, 1968, 2015, and 2016), only then to drop back in subsequent years. Further, it is difficult to determine whether the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused massive disruptions, is a factor in the increase in homicides or to know whether the homicide rate will abate as the pandemic ebbs. Finally, it bears emphasizing that during this 60-year period there have been years when the homicide rate fell by nearly 10% (e.g., 1996, 1999). From a policy perspective, it seems prudent to be responsive to increases in crime but also not to over-react to one or two years of data—particularly during times of considerable upheaval.

United States Murder and Nonnegligent Manslaughter Rate, 1960–2020

The growth in correctional populations, including prisoners, that began in the 1970s continued well into the twenty-first century—in other words, long after the crime rate began to abate in 1992. Figure  6 shows the prison population and total correctional population (state and federal prison plus jail, probation, and parole populations summed) between 1980 and 2020. Both trends peaked in 2009 at 1,615,500 prisoners and 7,405,209 incarcerated or on supervision. Year-over-year decreases, however, have been modest (Fig.  7 ), averaging about 1% (ignoring the steep decline between 2019 and 2020). The impact of factors associated with COVID-19, including policy and practice responses, resulted in a 15% decrease in the numbers of state and federal prisoners and a 14% decrease in the total number of adults under correctional control. Based on ongoing projects in pretrial and probation, as well as anecdotal evidence related to court closures and subsequent backlogs, it is reasonable to assume that some, if not most, of the decline in populations in 2020 was due to releases that exceeded new admissions as individuals completed their sentences and delays in court processing reduced new admissions. To the extent that these factors played a role, it is likely that in the immediate near term, we will see numbers rebound to values closer to what prevailed in 2019.

United States Prison and Total Correctional Populations, 1980–2020

Year-over-Year Change in Prison and Total Correctional Populations, 2981–2020

Responding with Toughness (and Dollars)

The increase in crime beginning in the 1960s led to a political demand for a punitive response emphasized by Richard Nixon’s “War on Crime” and “War on Drugs.” In 1970, Congress passed four anticrime bills that revised Federal drug laws and penalties, addressed evidence gathering against organized crime, authorized preventive detention and “no-knock” warrants, and provided $3.5 billion to state and local law enforcement. 6 Subsequent administrations continued these efforts, punctuated by the Crime Act of 1994. As described by the U.S. Department of Justice:

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 … is the largest crime bill in the history of the country and will provide for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and $6.1 billion in funding for prevention programs …. The Crime Bill provides $2.6 billion in additional funding for the FBI, DEA, INS, United States Attorneys, and other Justice Department components, as well as the Federal courts and the Treasury Department. 7

Much of the funding went to state and local agencies to encourage the adoption of mandatory minimum sentences, “three strikes” laws, and to hire 100,000 police officers and build prisons and jails. This funding was intended to steer the highly decentralized United States criminal justice “system” towards a more punitive approach to crime; this system encompasses all levels of government (local, state, and federal) and all branches of government (executive, judicial, legislative).

The nation’s crime rate peaked in 1992. So, this “largest crime bill in the history of the country” began a dramatic increase in funding for justice expenditures just as crime had already begun to decline. Figure  8 shows that expenditures increased roughly 50% in real dollars between 1997 and 2017—from $188 billion to more than $300 billion dollars (Buehler,  2021 ). 8 More than half of that increase-—$65.4 billion additional—went to police protection. Roughly $50 billion additional went to the judiciary and corrections.

United States Justice Expenditures, 1997–2017

So, what did these increases buy? Dramatically declining crime rates (Figs. ​ (Figs.4 4 and ​ and5) 5 ) suggest that numbers of crimes also declined. That can be seen in Fig.  9 , which shows offenses known and an estimate of offenses cleared for selected years between 1980 and 2019. 9 In 1991, there were 11,651,612 known property offenses and 1,682,487 known violent offenses—these numbers declined 47% and 34% by 2019.

Offenses Known and Cleared in the US, Selected Years 1980–2019

Declining numbers of crimes and dramatic increases in expenditures on policing and justice system operation would suggest that there should have been improvements in offense clearance rates during this time. This did not happen. Crime clearance rates stayed roughly constant, which means that the numbers of offenses cleared declined by percentages like declines in the number of offenses over this period—49% for property offenses and 33% for violent offenses. More than 750,000 violent offenses and more than 2 million property offenses were cleared in 1991 compared to about 500,000 violent offenses and 1 million property offenses in 2019.

Presently, as violent crime ticks up, we are hearing renewed calls for “tough-on-crime” measures. Some opinion writers have compared 2022 to Nixon’s era. Kevin Boyle noted:

[Nixon] already had his core message set in the early days of his 1968 campaign. In a February speech in New Hampshire, he said: “When a nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is torn apart by lawlessness, when a nation which has been the symbol of equality of opportunity is torn apart by racial strife … then I say it’s time for new leadership in the United States of America.” There it is: the fusion of crime, race and fear that Nixon believed would carry him to the presidency. 10

Responding to the recent increase in violent crime, President Joseph Biden proposed the Safer America Plan to provide $37 billion “to support law enforcement and crime prevention.” 11 The Plan includes more than $12 billion in funds for 100,000 additional police officers through the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. This proposal echoes the “100,000 cops on the street” that was a centerpiece of the 1994 Crime Act, which created the COPS office and program. Unlike the 1994 Crime Act, however, the Safer America Plan does not include funding for prisons and jails. Both the 1994 Crime Act and the Safer America Plan address gun violence, strengthen penalties for drug offenses, and provide support for programs and interventions to make communities safer and to address criminal recidivism.

The previous 50 or 60 years witnessed reforms efforts other than these that largely focused on bolstering the justice system infrastructure. The 1966 Bail Reform Act sought to reduce pretrial detention through the offer of money bond, but subsequently was supplanted by the 1984 Pretrial Reform Act that once again promoted pretrial detention. 12 This century—as jail populations exceeded 700,000, with most held prior to conviction—there has been considerable attention to eliminate money bond, which disproportionately leads to pretrial detention for poor and marginalized individuals (and release for the “well-heeled”). Private philanthropy has led much of this focus on pretrial and bail reform. For example, the MacArthur Foundation has spent several hundred million dollars on their Safety and Justice Challenge since 2015 with a goal of reducing jail populations and eliminating racial and ethnic disparity. 13 The Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) took a different approach and has invested substantial sums in the development and validation of a pretrial assessment instrument (the Public Safety Assessment or PSA) that provides assessments of the likelihood an individual will fail to appear to court or be arrested for a new crime or new violent crime if released while awaiting trial. 14 Although assessment algorithms have been criticized for lack of transparency and for perpetuating racial bias, the PSA scoring algorithm is publicly available and has not shown evidence of racial bias in a series of local validations conducted by RTI for LJAF. New York and New Jersey are among the states that have attempted to reduce reliance on money bond. However, as violent crime has increased, these efforts have faced considerable pushback.

The bail bonds industry has been a vocal opponent of efforts to reduce or eliminate the use of money bond. This industry is not the only one that profits from the imposition of punishment. As Page and Soss ( 2021 ) recently reported, “Over the past 35 years, public and private actors have turned US criminal justice institutions into a vast network of revenue-generating operations. Today, practices such as fines, fees, forfeitures, prison charges, and bail premiums transfer billions of dollars from oppressed communities to governments and corporations.” Fines, fees, and forfeitures generally profit the governments and agencies that impose them—although supervision fees to private probation services benefit businesses, as do fees for electronic monitoring, and drug testing. The Prison Policy Institute reports that there are more than 4,000 companies that profit from mass incarceration. 15 Court and supervision fees can quickly add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars, burdening people with crushing debt and the threat of jail if they don’t pay. 16 There can be other consequences as well. After Florida passed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to individuals once they had completed their carceral or community sentence, the State specified that the right to vote would not be restored until an individual had paid all outstanding fees and fines. In addition, mistakenly voting with outstanding fees and fines is a felony. 17

Other work to reform pretrial justice includes early provision of defense counsel, and implementation of diversion programs for individuals charged with low-level offenses or who have behavioral health issues. The sixth amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees criminal defendants in the United States a right to counsel. In some jurisdictions (and the Federal court system), this is the responsibility of an office of public defense. In others, private defense counsel is appointed by the Court. Regardless, public defense is widely understood to be poorly funded. As noted by Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy currently working to improve access to defense, “The resulting system is fragmented and underfunded; lacks quality control and oversight; and fails to safeguard the rights of the vast majority of people charged with crimes who are represented by public defenders or indigent counsel.” 18

Mental health problems are prevalent among individuals incarcerated in local jails and prisons. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, in a report by Bronson and Berzofsky ( 2017 ), reported that “prisoners and jail inmates were three to five times as likely to have met the threshold for SPD [serious psychological distress] as adults in the general U.S. population.” Bronson and Berzofsky further reported that 44% of individuals in jail reported being told they had a mental disorder. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s GAINS Center has been at the forefront of efforts to implement jail diversion programs for individuals with mental health or substance use disorders and has also played a significant role in the establishment of treatment courts. 19 Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) for law enforcement to improve interaction outcomes between law enforcement and individuals in crisis. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) notes that “The lack of mental health crisis services across the U.S. has resulted in law enforcement officers serving as first responders to most crises. A Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program is an innovative, community-based approach to improve the outcomes of these encounters.” 20 Non-law enforcement responses—such as the CAHOOTS program that was developed in Eugene, Oregon—to certain calls for service are also being tested in multiple communities. 21 Despite multiple efforts to identify appropriate alternatives to jail, individuals with mental health disorders continue to disproportionately fill the nation’s jails.

A Recapitulation

The 1970 crime bills that passed early in Nixon’s presidency set the stage for the infusion of federal dollars that has provided billions of dollars in funding for police and prisons. Between 1970 and 1994, the number of adults in state and federal prisons in the United States increased from less than 200,000 to nearly 1 million. In 2019, that number stood at more than 1.4 million down from its peak in 2009. Another 734,500 individuals were in jail and more than 4.3 million were in the community on probation or parole. Although representing a dramatic decline since these populations peaked about 2009, this still means that more than 6 million adults were under the supervision of federal, state, and local corrections agencies in 2019.

Thus, it is important to recognize that we are at a very different place from the Nixon era. Today, the numbers (and rates) of individuals who are “justice-involved” remain at near record highs. As the progressive efforts of the twenty-first century encounter headwinds, it is worth waving a caution flag as the “remedies” of the twentieth century—more police, “stop and frisk,” increased pretrial detention—are once again being proposed to address violent crime.

Part II: Finding “What Works”

The 1994 Crime Act and subsequent reauthorizations also included funding for a variety of programs, including drug courts, prison drug treatment programs, and other programs focused on facilitating reentry and reducing criminal recidivism. Subsequent legislation authorized other Federal investments that resurrected rehabilitation as a goal of correctional policy. The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) provided $100 million (and some limited supplements) to agencies to develop programs that began in prison and continued into the community and were intended to improve outcomes across a range of domains—community reintegration, employment, family, health (including mental health), housing, substance abuse, supervision compliance and, of course, recidivism (see Lattimore et al., 2005b ; Winterfield et al., 2006 ; Lattimore & Visher, 2013 , 2021 ; Visher et al., 2017 ). Congress did not reauthorize SVORI but instead authorized the Prisoner Reentry Initiative (PRI) managed by the U.S. Department of Labor; PRI (now the Reintegration of Ex-Offenders or RExO program) provides funding for employment-focused programs for non-violent offenders. In 2006, a third reentry-focused initiative was funded—the Marriage and Incarceration Initiative was managed by the Department of Health and Human Services and focused on strengthening marriage and families for male correctional populations. In 2008, Congress passed the Second Chance Act (SCA) to provide grants for prison and jail reentry programs. The SCA grant program administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) was reauthorized in 2018; it continues to provide reentry grants to state and local agencies (see Lindquist et al., 2021 ). These initiatives all primarily focused on supporting efforts at the state and local level. The First Step Act of 2018 focused on reforms for the federal prison system. These efforts signified a substantial increase in efforts aimed at determining “what works” to reduce criminal behavior—and provided an opportunity to rebut the “nothing works” in correctional programming that followed the publication of research by Lipton ( 1975 ).

Elsewhere, I have summarized some of the research into Federal initiatives that I have conducted over the years (Lattimore, 2020 ). These studies comprise work in dozens of states, involving thousands of individuals and have included studies of drug treatment, jail diversion, jail and prison reentry, and probation. Some involved evaluation of a substantial Federal investment, such as the multi-site evaluation of SVORI.

These evaluations, as has been largely true of those conducted by others, have produced mixed results. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses focusing on the effectiveness of adult correctional programming have yielded findings of modest or negligible effects (e.g., Aos et al., 2006 ; Bitney et al., 2017 ; Lipsey & Cullen, 2007 ; MacKenzie, 2006 ; Sherman, et al., 1997 ). In an updated inventory of research- and evidence-based adult programming, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Wanner, 2018 ) identified a variety of programs for which evidence suggests significant if modest effect sizes. As has been identified by others (e.g., MacKenzie, 2006 ), the most effective programs focused on individual change, including, for example, cognitive behavior therapy (estimated effect size of -0.11). Treatment-oriented intensive supervision programs were found to reduce recidivism by about 15%, while surveillance-oriented intensive supervision was found to have no demonstrated effects. Several types of work and educational programs (correctional industries, basic adult education, prison-based vocational education, and job training and assistance in the community) were found to reduce recidivism between 5 and 22%. Most non-zero treatment effect sizes were between about 5% and 15%. Lipsey and Cullen ( 2007 ) also suggest 14% to 22% reductions in recidivism for adult rehabilitation treatment programs.

Two thoughts about these small effects warrant consideration. The first, of course, is why reducing criminal behavior appears to be so difficult. Second, however, is that, in recognizing the first, perhaps we should adapt more realistic expectations about what can be achieved and acknowledge that even small effects can have a meaningful impact on public safety.

Challenges: Why Is Effective Criminal Justice Reform So Difficult?

One issue with most federal funding streams is “short timelines.” For example, typical of grant programs of this type, SVORI grantees were given three years of funding. During this time, they had to develop a programmatic strategy, establish interagency working arrangements, identify program and service providers, develop a strategy for identifying potential participants, and implement their programs. Three years is a very short time to develop a program that incorporates needs assessment, provides a multiplicity of services and programs within an institution, and creates a path for continuation of services as individuals are released to various communities across a state.

The “short timelines” problem underlies, and contributes to, a variety of other considerations that can plague efforts to identify “what works.” Based on my experiences, these considerations, which I discuss further below, include the following:

• People: Justice-involved individuals have multiple needs and there is an emerging question as to whether addressing these needs is the best path to desistance.
• Programs: Interventions often lack adequate logic models and are poorly implemented.
• Methods: Evaluations frequently are underpowered and unlikely to scale the alpha 0.05 hurdle typically used to identify statistically significant effects.

First, it is important to recognize that justice-involved individuals face serious and complex challenges that are difficult to remedy. Many scholars have highlighted the myriad of challenges faced by individuals returning to the community from prison (e.g., see Petersilia, 2003 ; Travis, 2005 ; Travis & Visher, 2005 ). In interviews conducted with 1,697 men and 357 women who participated in the SVORI multisite evaluation, 95% of women and 94% of men said at the time of prison release that they needed more education. Nearly as many—86% of women and 82% of men—said they needed job training. More than two-thirds indicated that they needed help with their criminal thinking and three-quarters said they needed life skills training. They were somewhat less likely to report needing substance use disorder or mental health treatment but still—at the time of prison release—66% of the women and 37% of the men reported needing substance use treatment and 55% of the women and 22% of the men reported needing mental health treatment.

Half of these individuals had participated in SVORI programs while incarcerated and the proportions reported reflect their self-assessment of need after in-prison receipt of programming. Figure  10 shows the percentages of SVORI and non-SVORI groups who reported receiving a select set of services and programs during their incarceration. Several things standout: (1) The receipt of programs and services during incarceration was much less than the indicated need at the time of release; and (2) SVORI program participants were more likely to report receiving services than the comparison group members who were not in SVORI programs.

Self-reported service receipt during incarceration for SVORI program evaluation participants. Note: * =  p  <  = 0.05. Educ = educational programming, EmplSrv = employment-related services, CrimAtt = programs for criminal attitudes including cognitive behavior therapy, LifeSk = life skills, AODTx = substance abuse treatment, and MHTx = mental health treatment. Sample sizes were SVORI men (863), non-SVORI men (834), SVORI women (153) and non-SVORI women (204).

Source: Lattimore & Visher (2009)

More recently, Lindquist et al. ( 2021 ) completed a seven-site evaluation of Second Chance Act reentry programs that were a mix of jail- and prison-based programs. About half of the study participants reported having received substance use disorder treatment and about one-third reported having received mental health treatment. At release, they reported limited-service receipt. For example, there was no significant difference between receipt of educational programming (23% of SCA program participants compared with 17% for comparison group members). SCA program participants were more likely to report receiving any employment services (60% versus 40%), which included job assistance, employment preparation, trade or job training programs, vocational or technical certifications, and transitional job placement or subsidized employment. SCA program participants were also more likely to report receiving cognitive behavioral services (58% versus 41%). But, again, not all program participants received services despite needing them and some comparison subjects received services.

Limited access to treatment by program participants and some access to treatment by comparison subjects were also observed in a multi-site study of pre- and post-booking jail diversion programs for individuals with co-occurring substance use disorder and serious mental illness (Broner et al., 2004 ; Lattimore et al., 2003 ). Across eight study sites, 971 diverted subjects and 995 non-diverted subjects were included in this evaluation; the research found only modest differences in the receipt of services and treatment at 3- and 12-months follow-up. For example, at the 3-month interview, 26% of both groups reported receiving substance abuse counseling, and at the 12-month interview, 0.7% of those diverted versus no non-diverted participant received two or more substance abuse counseling sessions. At 3 months, 38% of the diverted subjects and 30% of the non-diverted reported mental health counseling versus 41% and 38% at 12 months, respectively.

The service needs expressed by these individuals reflect their lack of education, job experience, vocational skills, and life skills, as well as the substance abuse and mental health issues identified among justice-involved individuals. The intervention response to these needs is reflected in the variety of services prescribed in the typical “reentry program bucket.” These involve the services and programs shown in Fig.  10 , as well as case management and reentry planning to coordinate services with respect to needs.

The identification of needs followed by efforts to meet those needs underlies the Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) approach to addressing justice-involved populations (e.g., Andrews & Bonta, 1994 , 2006 ; Latessa, 2020 ). The RNR approach to addressing criminal behavior is premised on the assumption that if you address identified needs that are correlated with criminal behavior, that behavior will be reduced. In other words, recidivism can be addressed by providing individuals the education and job skills and treatment they need to find gainful employment, reduce substance use, and mitigate symptoms of mental illness. Latessa ( 2020 ) recently discussed the RNR approach, reiterating the importance of assessing individual criminogenic and non-criminogenic needs to improve reentry programs. He also reiterated the importance of focusing resources on those identified as high (or higher) risk by actuarial risk assessment instruments—pointing to important work he conducted with colleagues that found that interventions reduced recidivism among high-risk individuals and increased it among low-risk individuals (Lowenkamp & Latessa, 2002 ; Latessa et al., 2010 ). This approach to reentry programming is reflected in the requirements of most federal grants—like the SVORI and SCA—that require programs to incorporate reentry planning that includes needs assessment and services that address criminogenic and non-criminogenic needs.

As noted, most justice-involved individuals have limited education and few job skills, and many have behavioral health issues, anger management issues, and limited life skills. But if addressing these deficits is the key to successfully rehabilitating large numbers of individuals caught in the carceral and community justice system, the meager results of recent research suggests two possibilities. First, this is the right approach, but poor or incomplete implementation has so far impeded findings of substantial effects (a common conclusion since the Martinson report). Second, alternatively, this approach is wrong (or insufficient), and new thinking about the “what and how” of rehabilitative programming is needed. I address the second idea next and turn to the first idea shortly.

MacKenzie ( 2006 ) and others (e.g., Andrews and Bonta, 2006 ; Andrews et al., 1990 ; Aos et al., 2006 ; Lipsey, 1995 ; Lipsey & Cullen, 2007 ) have stressed that programs focused on individual change have been found to be effective more often than those providing practical services. The SVORI evaluation also found support for this conclusion. Services we classified as “practical” (e.g., case manager, employment services, life skills, needs assessment, reentry planning, and reentry program) were associated with either no or a deleterious impact on arrest chances—although few were statistically different from a null effect. Individual-change services (e.g., anger management, programs for criminal attitudes including cognitive behavior therapy, education, help with personal relationships, and substance abuse treatment) were associated with positive impacts on arrest. The original SVORI evaluation had a follow-up period of about 2 years and findings suggested that the overall impact of SVORI program participation on rearrest and reincarceration were positive but not statistically significant. In contrast to these findings, a longer follow-up that extended at least 56 months showed participation in SVORI programs was associated with longer times to arrest and fewer arrests after release for both men and women. For the men, SVORI program participation was associated with a longer time to reincarceration and fewer reincarcerations, although the latter result was not statistically significant ( p  = 0.18). For the women, the reincarceration results were mixed and not significant.

Support for positive impacts of programs focused on individual change are consistent with theories associated with identity transformation and desistance from criminal activity. Bushway ( 2020 ) has recently discussed two alternative views of desistance, contrasting the implications of desistance either as a process (i.e., the gradual withdrawal from criminal activity) or reflective of an identify shift towards a more prosocial identity. In examining these two ideas, Bushway posits that the second suggests that individuals with a history of a high rate of offending may simply stop (as opposed to reducing the frequency of criminal acts). If individuals do (or can or will) stop, the implication is clear: policies that focus on an individual’s criminal history (e.g., for employment or parole decisions) may fail to recognize that the individual has changed. This change may be evidenced by in-prison good behavior (e.g., completing programs and staying out of trouble) or positive steps following release (e.g., actively seeking meaningful employment or engaging in positive relationships). Tellingly, Bushway ( 2020 ) notes: “Individuals involved in crime get information about how they are perceived by others through their involvement in the criminal justice system. Formal labels of ‘criminal’ are assigned and maintained by the criminal justice system. As a result, identity models are much more consistent theoretically with an empirical approach that revolves around measures of criminal justice involvement rather than criminal offending per se.” He goes on to discuss the relationship of identity-based models of stark breaks and criminal career models. In short, reflecting insights that labeling theorists have long emphasized, the labels the criminal justice system and society place on individuals may impede the desistance process that is the supposed goal of the system.

The second consideration are concerns about program design and implementation—What is the underlying logic model or theory of change? Is there adequate time to develop the program and train staff to implement it appropriately? Is the resulting program implemented with fidelity? The two or three years usually provided to implement complex programs suggest that these goals are unlikely to be met. The “notorious” findings of Martinson (1975) that “nothing works” was more appropriately interpreted as “nothing was implemented.” Unfortunately, nearly 50 years later, we largely observe something similar—not “nothing” but “something” that is far short of what was intended.

As discussed in detail by Taxman (2020), the usual approach to program development and testing skips over important formative steps, doesn’t allow time for pilot testing, and provides little opportunity for staff training or for achievement and maintenance of program fidelity (if there is even a program logic model). From an evaluator’s perspective, this short timeline imposes multiple challenges. An evaluator must identify study participants (and control or comparison subjects), follow them largely while they are in the program, and hope to have at least one year of post-program follow-up—generally without being able to accommodate the impact of likely weak implementation on evaluation power to detect effects.

Thus, it may not be surprising that effects are generally small. However, these small effects may not be negligible from a public safety perspective. In a study of the effects of non-residential drug treatment for a cohort of probationers, Lattimore et al. ( 2005a ) found that treatment reduced the number of probationers with a felony arrest by 23% during the first year and 11% over the first two years. The total number of arrests was also reduced by 17% over 12 months and 14% over 24 months. “Back of the envelope” calculations suggested that if treatment cost $1,000 per individual, it would have been cost effective to provide treatment to all members of the cohort as long as the (average) cost of arrest (and all related criminal justice processing and corrections) exceeds about $6,463.

Another example is to consider that the impact of a treatment effect in the 10% range applied across all prison releases would imply the aversion of many crimes. For example, assuming 750,000 prison releases each year over a five-year period and a 66% rearrest rate within 3 years (and no additional arrests after 3 years), then 3.75 million prisoners will be released over the five years; of these individuals, 2.475 million will be arrested at least once during the three years following release. A 10% reduction in first-time rearrests would mean 247,500 fewer first-time rearrests. To the extent that many offenders are arrested multiple times, this figure represents a lower bound on the number of averted arrests. A similar analysis could be conducted assuming 2,000,000 probation admissions each year and a 39% rearrest rate within 3 years. In this case, there would be 10,000,000 probation admissions that would generate 3.9 million first-time arrests over the three years after admission to probation. A 10% reduction in first-time rearrests would mean 390,000 fewer arrests. In total, therefore, reducing recidivism—as measured by rearrest by 10% for these hypothetical correctional populations—would translate into 637,500 averted arrests. Extrapolating further and assuming that roughly 10% of the arrests were for violent crime and 90% for property crime, and applying the inverse of the crime clearance rates for these two types of crime to generate a “crimes averted” count, we find that a 10% reduction in recidivism for these two populations would translate into 140,110 violent and 3,519,939 property crimes averted. 22 Thus, “modest” improvements in recidivism may provide substantial public benefits—in crimes averted, and lower demands on law enforcement, prosecution, and correctional resources. 23

The third consideration is the adequacy of the evaluation methods we routinely apply to this complex problem of inadequate interventions that are partially and sometimes poorly implemented. At minimum, we need to explicitly recognize the impacts of the following:

• Programs partially implemented and partially treated control conditions.
• Recidivism outcomes conditioned on an intermediate outcome.
• Follow-up periods too short to accommodate short-term failure followed by long-term success.
• Focusing on a binary indicator of recidivism ignores frequency and seriousness of offending.

The impact of partial treatment of both treatment and control groups on effect sizes and the consequential impact on statistical power is seldom discussed—either in initial estimates of needed sample sizes or in subsequent discussions of findings. As shown earlier and is true for most justice evaluations, the control or comparison condition is almost never “nothing.” Instead, it is generally “business as usual” (BAU) that means whatever the current standard of treatment entails. Thus, the treatment group may receive some services that aren’t available to the control group, but in many cases both groups have access to specific services and programs although the treatment group may get priority.

As we saw in Fig.  10 , treatment was reported by some individuals in both the SVORI and non-SVORI groups. Table ​ Table1 1 shows the implications of partial treatment using data from the SVORI evaluation. 24 The percent treated for the SVORI and non-SVORI men are shown in columns three and four. Column 2 presents the effect sizes for four interventions as identified by Wanner ( 2018 ). If we assume that the recidivism rate without treatment is 20%, 25 the observed recidivism rate for the SVORI and non-SVORI men as a result of receiving each treatment is shown in columns four and five. Column six shows that the observed differences in recidivism between the two groups in this “thought experiment” are less than two percent—an effect size that would never be detected with typical correctional program evaluations. 26

Hypothetical treatment effects with incomplete treatment of the treatment group and partial treatment of the comparison group, assuming untreated recidivism rate is 20 percent

* Estimates from Wanner ( 2018 ).

Similar findings emerge when considering the effects on recidivism of interventions such as job training programs that are intended to improve outcomes intermediate to recidivism. Consider the hypothetical impact of a prison job training program on post-release employment and recidivism. The underlying theory of change is that training will increase post-release employment and having a job will reduce recidivism. 27 Suppose the job training program boosts post-release employment by 30% and that, without the program, 50% of released individuals will find a job. A 30% improvement means that 65% of program participants will find employment. Randomly assigning 100 of 200 individuals to receive the program would result in 50 of those in the control group and 65 of those in the treatment group to find employment. (This outcome assumes everyone in the treatment group receives treatment.) Table ​ Table2 2 shows the treatment effect on recidivism under various assumptions about the impact of employment on recidivism. The table assumes a 50% recidivism rate for the unemployed so, e.g., if the effect of a job is to reduce recidivism by 10% employed individuals will have a recidivism rate of 45%. If there is no effect—i.e., recidivism is independent of being employed—we observe 50% failure for both groups and there is no effect on recidivism rates even if the program is successful at increasing employment by 30%. On the other hand, if being employed eliminates recidivism, no one who is employed will be recidivists and 50% of those unemployed will be recidivists—or 25 of the control group and 17.5 of the treated group. The last column in Table ​ Table2 2 shows the conditional effect of job training on recidivism under the various effects of employment on recidivism shown in column 1. The effects shown in the last column are the same regardless of the assumption about the recidivism rate of the unemployed. So, employment must have a very substantial effect on the recidivism rate to result in a large effect on the observed recidivism rate when, as is reasonable to assume, some members of the control group who didn’t have the training will find employment. As before, this finding underscores the need to carefully consider the mechanism affecting recidivism and potential threats to effect sizes and statistical power.

Hypothetical effects of job training on employment and recidivism assuming job training increases employment by 30% and control (untreated) employment is 50%

A third concern is that follow-up periods which typically are 2 years or less may be too short to observe positive impacts of interventions (Lattimore & Visher, 2020). Although this may seem counterintuitive, it is what was observed for the SVORI multisite evaluation. The initial SVORI evaluation focused on the impact of participation with at least 21 months of follow-up following release from prison and showed positive but insignificant differences in rearrests for the SVORI and non-SVORI groups. A subsequent NIJ award provided funding for a long-term (at least 56 months) examination of recidivism for 11 of the 12 adult programs (Visher et al., 2017 ; also see Lattimore et al., 2012 ). In contrast to the findings in the original study, participation in SVORI programs was associated with longer times to arrest and fewer arrests after release for both men and women during the extended follow-up period of at least 56 months. Although untestable post hoc, one plausible hypothesis is that the early period following release is chaotic for many individuals leaving prison and failure is likely. Only after the initial “settling out period” are individuals in a position to take advantage of what was learned during program participation. In any event, these findings suggest the need to conduct more, longer-term evaluations of reentry programs.

A final consideration is the indicator of recidivism used to judge the success of a program. Recidivism, which is a return to criminal behavior, is almost never observed. Instead, researchers and practitioners rely on proxies that are measures of justice system indicators that a crime has occurred—arrest, conviction, and incarceration for new offenses—and, for those on supervision, violation of conditions and revocation of supervision. A recent National Academy of Sciences’ publication ( 2022 ) highlights some of the limitations of recidivism as a measure of post-release outcomes, arguing that indicators of success and measures that allow for the observation of desisting behavior (defined by the panel as a process—not the sharp break advanced by Bushway) should be used instead. These are valid points but certainly in the short run the funders of interventions and those responsible for public safety are unlikely to be willing to ignore new criminal activity as an outcome.

It is worth highlighting, however, some of the limitations of the binary indicator of any new event that is the usual measure adopted by many researchers (e.g., “any new arrest within x years”) and practitioners (e.g., “return to our Department within 3 years”). These simple measures ignore important dimensions of recidivism. These include type of offense (e.g., violent, property, drug), seriousness of offense (e.g., homicide, felony assault, misdemeanor assault), and frequency of offending (equivalent to time to the recidivism event). As a result, a typical recidivism outcome treats as identical minor acts committed, e.g., 20 months following release, and serious crimes committed immediately. Note too that this binary indicator fails in terms of being able to recognize desisting behavior, that is, where time between events increases or the seriousness of the offense decreases. Survival methods and count or event models address the frequency consideration. Competing hazard models allow one to examine differences between a few categories of offending (e.g., violent, property, drug, other). The only approach that appears to have tackled the seriousness dimension is the work by Sherman and colleagues (Sherman et al., 2016 ; also, see www.crim.cam.ac.uk/research/thecambridgecrimeharminde ) who have developed a Crime Harm Index that is based on potential sentences for non-victimless crimes. To date, statistical methods that can accommodate the three dimensions simultaneously do not, to my knowledge, exist. At a minimum, however, researchers should use the methods that are available to fully explore their recidivism outcomes. Logistic regression models are easy to estimate and the results are easily interpretable. But an intervention may be useful if it increases the time to a new offense or reduces the seriousness of new criminal behavior.

The last forty years or so have seen strides at identifying interventions that are promising, but much work remains to be done to find programs that result in substantial, broad-based improvements. Challenges in program development and implementation, partial treatment of treatment groups and control groups, and limited focus on recidivism as a binary indicator of failure were highlighted as some of the issues confronting practitioners and evaluators. 28 There is reason for optimism—if expectations are realistic from both a programmatic and methodological perspective: Identify promising programs, apply best practices of implementation science, calculate reasonable statistical expectations, and build on what has been tried.

Conclusions

In the past several decades, dramatic increases in crime resulted in large-scale legislative changes and expenditures. Correctional populations dramatically increased even as crime rates plunged. In addition, despite large increases in funding to law enforcement and other justice agencies, the number of offenses cleared declined. During this time, there were multiple federal initiatives focused on reducing criminal recidivism. Some, such as the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) programs, focused singularly on reducing drug use, while others focused broadly on addressing the multi-faceted needs of justice-involved individuals.

These changes occurred in a context of a highly decentralized approach to criminal justice, one that creates a myriad of costs and incentives. For example, if a federally funded reentry program reduces crime, the immediate agency beneficiaries are local law enforcement (due to fewer crimes to solve), prosecution (due to fewer crimes to prosecute), and the courts (due to fewer cases to try). That can reduce admissions to prison. But for cost-savings to occur, agencies have to respond to reductions in crime by reducing costs. That tends to run counter to the natural inclination of administrators, especially if it means reducing staffing. And it runs counter to what happened as crime declined over the last roughly 30 years.

We increasingly have research evidence that some programs can reduce recidivism, but many challenges, such as underpowered research designs, sometimes undermines this evidence. Even so, it is important to note that even modest reductions in recidivism imply opportunities to avert substantial numbers of crimes and subsequent criminal justice system processing and costs.

This essay suggests that it is time to embrace the modest improvements in recidivism that have been forthcoming from programs that have been subjected to the most rigorous evaluations. And it suggests that it is time to downsize our expectations for a “silver bullet” and, instead, prepare for a long-term and sustained investment in programming that will improve, refine and augment programs and approaches that “work.” By using “what works” today as the basis for the successful adaptation of multi-faceted programs that address the multiplicity of offender needs, criminal justice policy and practice will develop the tools needed to help a heterogeneous population of prisoners successfully reenter their communities.

Finally, as policymakers grapple with a recent increase in violent crime, it is important to recognize that the “tough-on-crime” responses of the twentieth century led to a 252% increase in the number of citizens under legal system control—including a 312% increase in prison populations—between 1980 and 2000. Correctional populations peaked in 2008 but in 2019 remain 255% above 1980 levels with more than 6.5 million individuals in prisons, jails, or on probation or parole. 29 As the current administration proposes the Safer America Plan, it is important that proper attention be addressed to assure that the result of these expenditures is not to reinvigorate the mass incarceration and mass supervision that followed the adaptation of the as the 1984 Pretrial Reform Act and the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-in-Sentencing Act of 1994. And it is important that we attend to widespread support for high-quality implementation of programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism.

is a Principal Scientist with RTI International’s Justice Practice Area. She has more than 35 years of experience evaluating interventions, investigating the causes and correlates of criminal behavior, and developing approaches to improve criminal justice operations. She was principal investigator for multi-site, multi-method evaluations including the Multi-Site Evaluation of the Serious and Violent Offender Initiative, the Second Chase Act Adult Offender Reentry Demonstration Program Evaluation, and the HOPE Demonstration Field Experiment. She is principal investigator for research examining pretrial risk assessment, policy, and practice; state-level reforms for adult probation; implementation and impact of criminal record expungement; development and implementation of dynamic risk assessment algorithms for Georgia probation and parole; and the long-term impact of a three-state RCT of the 5-Key Reentry Program Model. She is a past Chair of the American Society of Criminology Division on Corrections and Sentencing, a Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, and a recipient of the American Correctional Association Peter P. Lejins Researcher Award, the American Society of Criminology Division on Corrections and Sentencing Distinguished Scholar Award, and the Academy of Experimental Criminology Joan McCord Award. Dr. Lattimore has published extensively, has served on the editorial boards of multiple journals, and was the inaugural co-editor of the annual series Handbook on Corrections and Sentencing published by Routledge Press.

Data Availability

1 Some of the ideas presented here were initially explored in Lattimore ( 2020 ) and Lattimore et al. ( 2021 ).

2 Data 1960 to 1984 are FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data; downloaded March 5, 2006; data from 1985 to 2020 are from https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend , downloaded July 12, 2022.

3 Violent crime commands the most attention and hence is the focus here, but property crimes are much more prevalent—directly affecting many more individuals. Property crime rates also increased in the 1960s and 1970s. The property crime rate increased from 1,726.3 per 100,000 in 1960 to 4,660.2 in 1994—an 170% increase. The property crime rate peaked in 1980 at 5,353.3 per 100,000—a 210% increase over 1960.

4 Data for 1960 and 1970 prisoners are from Cahalan, M.W. and Parsons, L.A. ( 1986 ). Data from 1980–2014 are from Glaze, L., Minton, T., & West, H. (Date of version: 12/08/ 2009 ) and Kaeble, D., Glaze, L., Tsoutis, A., & Minton, T. ( 2015 ). Data from 2015–2020 are from Kluckow, DSW, & Zeng, Z. (Date of version: 3/31/ 2022 ).

5 As noted in footnote 3, property crime rates also rose between 1960 and 1980—peaking at 5,353.3 per 100,000. With some minor fluctuations, the property crime rate has declined steadily since the 1980s and was 1958.2 per 100,000 in 2020.

6 The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (PL 91–513); the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (PL 91–452); the District of Columbia Court Reorganization and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970 (PL 91–358); and the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1970.

7 https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt

8 The trend shown in Fig.  9 continued a trend. Between 1982 and 1997, total justice expenditures increased 125% from $84.1 billion to $189.5 billion (2007 dollars), Kyckelhahn, T. ( 2011 ).

9 Data are from the FBI Crime in the United States publications for 1980, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2010 and 2019 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/ . Numbers of offenses cleared were estimated by multiplying the offenses known by the offense clearance rates reported by the FBI.

10 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/opinion/richard-nixon-america-trump.html

11 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/01/fact-sheet-president-bidens-safer-america-plan-2/

12 For some thoughts on recommendations for reforms for pretrial and sentencing see Lattimore, Spohn, & DeMichele ( 2021 ). This volume also has recommendations for reform across the justice system.

13 Safety and Justice Challenge.

14 https://www.arnoldventures.org/

15 https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/economics_of_incarceration/

16 For an example of how a minor traffic offense can result in thousands of dollars in fines and fees for extensive terms of private probation see In Small-Town Georgia, A Broken Taillight Can Lead to Spiraling Debt—In These Times.

17 See for example, https://www.propublica.org/article/florida-felonies-voter-fraud

18 https://www.arnoldventures.org/work/public-defense

19 https://www.samhsa.gov/gains-center

20 https://www.nami.org/Advocacy/Crisis-Intervention/Crisis-Intervention-Team-(CIT)-Programs

21 https://www.eugene-or.gov/4508/CAHOOTS

22 In 2005, the Uniform Crime Reports reported 1,197,089 known violent offenses and 8,935,714 known property offenses or a ratio of about 1:9. Clearance rates were 45.5% for violent and 16.3% for property crimes known to police. The estimated total number of arrests for 2005 was 14,094, 186. Thus, the violent and property arrests account for about 72% of all arrests. Of course, these estimates rest on many assumptions—in some cases, these assumptions would imply that we are estimating the lower bound, since each member of our study population is allowed only one arrest while many will have many more than one. On the other hand, to the extent that individuals are arrested who have committed no offenses, the estimates would over represent the impact of a reduction in crime. The goal here was not to generate a precise estimate but to illustrate that a 10% reduction in recidivism translates into substantial reductions in crime.

23 A model-based estimate of the effect of non-residential drug treatment on 134,000 drug-involved individuals admitted to probation in Florida showed treatment reduced arrests by more than 20% (Lattimore et al., 2005a , 2005b ). This analysis was extended to a cost-effectiveness framework in which it was shown that it would be cost effective to spend $1000 treating all drug-involved probations as long as the average cost of an arrest averted (including arrest, and the costs of judicial processing and corrections) is at least $6,463.

where R = recidivism rate for the group, r = recidivism rate in the absence of treatment, T = percentage of group that is treated, and p = the percentage reduction in recidivism due to treatment (the treatment effect). Differences in outcomes are constant with respect to the assumed recidivism rate in the absence of treatment.

25 Differences in outcomes are constant with respect to the assumed recidivism rate without treatment.

26 Lipsey ( 1998 ) discusses the issue of underpowered evaluations.

27 A similar example was presented in Lattimore, Visher, & Steffey ( 2010 ).

28 Although not addressed here because of page limitations additional important methodological considerations include whether a comparison group exists for some interventions such as incarceration (see Lattimore & Visher 2021 for a brief discussion) and, even more challenging, whether replication is even possible given the heterogeneity of context and populations. For an interesting consideration of the implications of the latter for examining the impact of incarceration see Mears, Cochran & Cullen ( 2015 ).

29 Correctional populations dropped dramatically in 2020 as law enforcement and the criminal justice system adapted to COVID-19.

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A better path forward for criminal justice: Prisoner reentry

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Annelies Goger , Annelies Goger Fellow - Brookings Metro David J. Harding , and David J. Harding Professor - University of California, Berkeley Howard Henderson Howard Henderson Nonresident Senior Fellow - Governance Studies

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Below is the seventh chapter from “A Better Path Forward for Criminal Justice,” a report by the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform. You can access other chapters from the report here .

Over 640,000 people return to our communities from prison each year. However, due to the lack of institutional support, statutorily imposed legal barriers, stigmas, and low wages, most prison sentences are for life—especially for residents of Black and Brown communities. More than half of the formerly incarcerated are unable to find stable employment within their first year of return and three-fourths of them are rearrested within three years of release. 1 2

Research has demonstrated that health, housing, skill development, mentorship, social networks, and the collaborative efforts of public and private organizations collectively improve the reentry experience. 3

More than half of the formerly incarcerated are unable to find stable employment within their first year of return and three-fourths of them are rearrested within three years of release.

Level Setting

Prisoner reentry should be understood as a critical piece of any racial justice agenda. Imprisonment rates are five to eight times higher for Black Americans than any other racial/ethnic group, and historically disenfranchised neighborhoods receive the bulk of returning citizens. 4 5 6 For example, a recent study of reentry in Boston found that 40 percent of a reentry program’s participants returned to just two neighborhoods. 7 Ultimately, reentry experiences are shaped by class and racialized neighborhood segregation.

Although activists and communities have advocated for a response to mass incarceration for decades, it took a global pandemic to challenge surveillance and social control through policing and incarceration. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced jails and prisons to release thousands in an attempt to limit the devastating impact of viral spread in incarceration’s close living quarters. 8  The need to reimagine reentry during this pandemic provides an opportunity to remove barriers to successful reentry while simultaneously addressing the broader racial disparities in our justice system.

Eliminating racial disparities in our criminal justice system and improving reentry outcomes requires a wholesale rethinking of our orientation toward criminal justice, rather than piecemeal reforms or isolated new programs. We must move away from a policy framework that focuses on punishment as a tool for controlling risk in favor of a focus on human rights, harm reduction, and the social, political, and economic reintegration of those who have been incarcerated. A well-developed, evidence-supported action plan for enhancing transitions from prison to society will focus on increasing independence, reducing racial and ethnic disparities, and achieving public safety. Our policy recommendations build upon the recent collective efforts that led to the First Step Act and the expansion of Federal Pell Grants eligibility for incarcerated people. We acknowledge that broader investments to level the playing field and foster more equitable access to quality education and economic opportunities are important to prevent incarceration in the first place and make it easier for those who are incarcerated to transition to employment after release. However, these wider policies to increase racial and economic equity are not the main focus of this brief.

Accordingly, our recommendations include:

Short-Term Reforms

• Prioritize vaccination in correctional facilities
• Ensure safe access to safety net programs for justice system impacted populations and use of COVID relief funding to address their barriers
• Expand access to the internet and digital skills needed during the pandemic
• Improve data sharing and service coordination

Medium-Term Reforms

• End restrictions on occupational licensing, safety net programs, and hiring for those with criminal records
• Expand and enforce anti-discrimination rules and regulations
• Enhance oversight and regulation of the criminal background check industry
• Increase funding for subsidized employment programs and American Job Centers
• Spur the creation of coordinated pre- to post-release education and work-based learning programs
• Update outdated security rules and technology policies in correctional facilities that limit the development of new rehabilitation programming
• Expand internet access in correctional facilities
• Modernize state and local data systems to improve service coordination and research

Long-Term Reforms

• Reorient parole and other forms of community supervision toward social and economic reintegration
• Increase access to services related to housing, employment, health/addiction, and social reintegration
• Improve rehabilitation services in correctional facilities by adopting a continuity of care model
• Expand funding for prison rehabilitation programming to meet demand

We must move away from a policy framework that focuses on punishment as a tool for controlling risk in favor of a focus on human rights, harm reduction, and the social, political, and economic reintegration of those who have been incarcerated.

Recommendations for change

Only 12 percent of prisoners are under federal jurisdiction. The remaining 88 percent are state prisoners. 9 This means that the conditions of imprisonment and support available for reentry vary greatly for different people and places, with important implications for equity. This also means that states are best positioned to make changes to many aspects of reentry policy. Yet the federal government can do more to improve reentry outcomes. First, federal officials can shape the public conversation by acknowledging the historical legacy of mass incarceration in the United States, emphasizing the humanity of people who are incarcerated, human rights, and giving people with conviction records a fair chance to succeed. Second, changes in federal reentry policies can serve as a model for states. Third, the federal government can provide funding for demonstration projects and more long-term funding streams to scale up proven reentry programs. Fourth, the federal government can change and enforce administrative rules and guidance for existing rules and laws, and develop new legislation to address gaps in authority, inequities in access, and a lack of consistent institutional infrastructure for supporting reentry. We note also that changes in policies with significant potential to improve reentry outcomes extend far beyond federal agencies traditionally involved in the administration of justice. Reentry barriers include housing, education, employment, health, and political rights. 10

We divide our discussion into short, medium and long-term recommendations. The short-term recommendations pertain to existing funding streams and discretionary authority regarding administrative rules and regulations, funding decisions, and rule enforcement. The medium-term recommendations involve the creation of new legislation, infrastructure, and funding appropriations. Our long-term recommendations include changes in laws to achieve fundamental reorientations of existing policy frameworks and approaches that require substantial new funding appropriations.

Short-term Reforms

The global pandemic has profoundly impacted people in prisons and jails and their surrounding communities. 11 Although jail and prison populations have decreased since the start of the pandemic, in many areas incarceration levels are beginning to return to pre-pandemic levels despite the unprecedented surge in cases and deaths. 12

Reentry, in this context, is more challenging than it was before the pandemic in several respects:

• As facilities restrict visitors, access to reentry services is curtailed, and many states are not vaccinating, testing, or quarantining people upon release, putting people in transitional housing and the wider community at risk of COVID-19 exposure. 13
• Basic social support systems such as food pantries, homeless services, and mental health services continue to be strained with increased demand, and many service providers have limited in-person services to protect public health. 14 This affects service access and quality for people with conviction records, especially in Black, Latino or Hispanic, and Native American communities that have been disproportionately impacted by over-incarceration and COVID-19.
• Less availability of jobs in the COVID-19 recession makes it harder for people with barriers to employment, including people with conviction records, to compete for jobs and secure employment. 15
• Many education and service providers have shifted service delivery online to prevent community spread, but people with conviction records often face barriers to accessing online resources, including the lack of a stable internet connection or limited familiarity with technology. 16

In the short-term, policymakers and government officials at all levels should take steps to prioritize vaccination in justice and detention facilities and renew the focus on minimizing the incarcerated population. Federal, state, and local policymakers should also consider more testing, quarantining, and targeted relief for people with conviction records who face barriers accessing federal stimulus payments, employment, unemployment insurance, safety net programs, and second chance relief. 17 For example, state governors and/or agency secretaries could issue emergency guidance requiring that jails and prisons issue state IDs to qualified individuals and enroll eligible individuals in health insurance, food assistance, and career services prior to release.

In addition, facility staff and reentry providers should provide updated and consistent information about where to access support in the COVID-19 era, provide more training on digital skills, and increase coordination through direct handoffs to organizations providing support such as American Job Centers (AJCs), public health organizations, and reentry organizations. To the extent feasible, administration officials and state leaders should also reorient funding priorities to improve data sharing for service coordination, expand resources for secure broadband and technology access in prisons and jails, provide resources to expand Pell-funded education opportunities inside incarceration facilities, and make both pre-release and post-release protocols more flexible to accommodate the urgency of the crisis and elevated risk to human life. 18

Medium-term Reforms

The stigma of a criminal record is one of the most important and well-documented barriers to successful reentry and reintegration, 19 impacting not just employment but also housing, 20 education, 21 and access to the safety net. 22 Stigma is both formal—prohibitions encoded in laws or regulations—and informal—impacting how formerly incarcerated individuals are evaluated by employers, landlords, and others.

There is substantial evidence that relief from criminal record stigma leads to improved outcomes, especially with regard to employment. 23 The stigma of a criminal record represents a form of punishment beyond the formal sentence received from a court, one that has long-term impacts.

Consideration of a criminal record must be job-specific and justified, with a presumption that the criminal record is irrelevant. Current Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines recommend only considering the criminal record after a hiring decision has been made and only when the record itself is closely related to the job. 24 Research suggests that many employers are unaware of these guidelines, necessitating greater education and enforcement. 25 Ban-the-box laws, perhaps the most common policy to counter criminal record stigma in employment, have been shown to increase racial discrimination. 26

To reduce the impact of criminal record stigma, we recommend the following:

• End restrictions on living in publicly subsidized housing for those with criminal records
• Expand the authority and budget of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to combat discrimination based on criminal record in employment and housing.
• Reform negligent-hiring laws that make employers hesitant to hire those with criminal records. 27
• Blanket bans on applicants with criminal records should be prohibited. Ensure that local and state governments are in compliance.
• Appoint a blue ribbon commission to study and recommend reducing occupational licensing prohibitions, which are widespread and poorly justified. 28
• Prohibit postsecondary institutions that receive federal funds from discriminating based on criminal records in admissions and hiring.
• Remove eligibility restrictions based on criminal record from federally funded safety-net programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, because access to these programs has been shown to reduce recidivism. 29
• Enhance regulation of the criminal background check industry, as the consumer credit agencies are regulated, to improve the rights of individuals to correct information and to hold sellers of criminal record information responsible for its accuracy. 30

Stigma is not the only barrier to post-release employment, as the formerly incarcerated typically have low levels of education and work experience. 31 Enhancing job search skills, job readiness, professional networks, and access to educational opportunities for the formerly incarcerated is essential to reentry success. One option is to increase work experience, enhance professional networks, and reduce hiring risk by expanding subsidized employment programs and programs that match employers with soon-to-be-released prisoners. 32 Another option is to expand federal funding and incentivize the location of AJCs inside jails and prison facilities, building on the lessons from a recent U.S. Department of Labor demonstration project in 20 areas suggesting AJCs lead to gradual shifts in the culture within facilities from punishment to rehabilitation. 33 Recent relief legislation lifted restrictions on Pell grant access for people who are incarcerated and who have certain crimes on their records, which can spur the creation of coordinated pre- to post-release education and work-based learning programs. 34 In addition, formerly incarcerated people typically suffer from socially and economically induced traumas that can interfere with effective decisionmaking. 35 Cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to improve reentry outcomes. 36

Enhancing job search skills, job readiness, professional networks, and access to educational opportunities for the formerly incarcerated is essential to reentry success.

Finally, existing evidence on program development and implementation in correctional facilities suggests multiple avenues for jumpstarting the development and quality of new programs. First, establish consistently available and evidence-based reentry programs and provide additional flexibility with regard to outdated security rules and technology policies. For example, evidence suggests that cognitive behavioral therapy is effective for justice-involved adults for rehabilitation, self-confidence, and personal transformation. 37 Second, lack of Internet access and overly rigid security protocols in some jails hindered the ability of several jails to implement satellite AJCs. 38 Third, invest in broadband infrastructure, virtual reality (VR), and other technologies in prisons to improve access to online resources like job boards and online/VR training programs. Finally, invest in digital transformation and modernization of state-level data systems and revisit outdated restrictions on data sharing across programs and agencies (while protecting privacy). Antiquated and siloed data systems are a major barrier to service coordination and holistically meeting the needs of people with multiple challenges. 39

Long-term Reforms

With the rise and entrenchment of mass incarceration came a change in the nature and goals of post-prison parole supervision, from a social work orientation to a law enforcement orientation that focuses on risk assessment and risk management. 40 The parole system has now become a major obstacle to successful reentry through its emphasis on surveillance and punishment. Technical violations of parole and probation account for large shares of prison admissions in many states, 41 and recent evidence suggests that the parole system is an important driver of prison’s revolving door. 42 Lack of due process in parole revocation decisions also raises serious normative questions. 43

Reforms are critically needed to reorient parole to support social and economic reintegration. Rather than monitoring for desistance, new policies should focus on creating opportunities to develop and reinforce pro-social identities. 44 These reforms include increased access to services related to housing, employment, health, mental health and addiction, and social reintegration. They also provide greater options for less disruptive sanctions for technical parole violations and new national standards for the training of parole and probation officers in skills such as service coordination, motivational interviewing, alternatives to punishment, and counseling. 45 Parolees would also benefit from opportunities to earn lower levels of supervision or early termination via completion of treatment programs or earning vocational or academic credentials.

A lack of preparation for release currently hinders reentry and reintegration. For example, demand for in-prison services in domains like substance abuse treatment and education far exceed supply despite the demonstrated effectiveness of such programs at reducing recidivism. 46 And the effectiveness of such programs could be enhanced by adopting a “continuity of care” model common for medical treatment in which in-prison services are tied to parallel programs and supports in the community after release, facilitating effective handoffs. 47 This model ensures continued access to support and receipt of long-term treatment, especially during the challenging period immediately after release, and reorients prison staff toward rehabilitation and release preparation.

We see “continuity of care” as potentially productive in domains like substance abuse treatment, family services, employment, and education. For example, identical substance abuse treatment models can improve post-release participation, college courses taught by the same institution in prison and in the community would ease enrollment post-release, and in-prison work that builds skills in industries with high labor demand in the community of release could improve employment. The location of prisons in rural areas, far from the prisoners’ families and communities, also creates barriers to continuity of care and the involvement of families, who play a central role in reintegration. 48 Ensuring continuity of care will require investment in bringing programs up to scale and in policy alignment and coordination across domains and levels of government. The federal government could spur innovation by providing technical expertise and funding for coordination and ensuring that rules and regulations do not impede cooperation between prisons and community providers.

Recommendations for future research

Although there is a growing academic and evaluation literature on reentry experiences and programs, we still need to better understand a diverse range of reentry experiences, the factors and practices that lead to better or more equitable outcomes, and the legal and policy barriers that undermine the goal of shifting from a culture of continual punishment to a culture of rehabilitation and reintegration. Below we lay out research priorities in each of these broad areas where there are significant gaps.

1. Reentry experiences : Existing research suggests that some populations experience more barriers than others in reintegrating into society, but there is a need for more in-depth research on the experiences of racial/ethnic minorities, women (especially Black, Latino or Hispanic, and Native American women), people with disabilities (including cognitive and mental health disabilities), LGBTQ individuals, young adults, people released in rural areas, gig workers, and those whose intersectional identities create multiple barriers to successful reentry.

2. Factors and practices that influence outcomes :

• Pandemic impacts: How did the pandemic change policies such as fewer arrests and more releases, and what were the impacts of those changes on community safety and wellbeing of the individuals who were released? How did the uneven impacts of the pandemic in Black, Latino or Hispanic, and Native American communities shape reentry experiences for those who were released into the same communities? Stigma: How to reduce stigma among employers, landlords, and the media as well as documenting the impacts of stigma on individuals, families, and communities?
• Parole officers and other justice system actors: How do their training, mindset, and incentive structures support or undermine successful reentry?
• Intermediate sanctions: When are they helpful and when do they simply provide pathways back to prison (“net widening”)?
• Fair chance hiring: How do hiring practices differ among employers with more and less employees with conviction records? How does the use of artificial intelligence in hiring and recruitment impact people with conviction records?
• Industry-specific factors: How do occupational segregation, discrimination, and licensing requirements contribute to more limited employment options for certain groups of people with conviction records (e.g., women and Black or Latino or Hispanic)?

3. Legal and policy barriers : Although there is bipartisan support and evidence to maximize reentry success, our legacy legal and policy frameworks often undermine these new goals as an artifact of the previous emphasis on punishment. Rather than focusing on desistance from crime, our legal and policy frameworks should emphasize opportunities to create and affirm pro-social identities. More research is needed to unpack a litany of federal, state, and local laws and policies to identify barriers that tend to undermine efforts at establishing pro-social identities and reintegration. 49 This includes housing, voting, financial aid, and food assistance restrictions that render people with conviction records ineligible. In addition, it means ensuring that people who have conviction records have more legal protections and entitlements across various areas of everyday life, which may require identifying legal cases with potential to revisit central legal questions such as whether it is legal to discriminate on the basis of a conviction record for access to housing or if housing is a basic human right that is essential for reentry success. As another example, to what extent are transitional housing facilities allowed to establish curfews and or place restrictions on the possession of personal belongings such as technology, if doing so undermines someone’s ability to get or keep a job or rebuild personal and professional networks? Are prison wages of pennies per hour desirable from a policy or normative perspective?

Moreover, reentry research would benefit from consistent measurement of outcomes and accessible, user-friendly data systems to track outcomes and coordinate services across multiple agencies and programs that play a role in the reentry ecosystem. Although there have been major investments in research on the effectiveness of reentry programs, it is challenging to compare across studies because they often do not systematically assess outcomes in the same ways, may only assess one aspect of reentry success, or only assess short-term impacts. 50 Common barriers to the implementation of reentry services include lack of coordination across partners, inadequate resources, variation in intensity and scope of services across areas, and a lack of data systems and secure data sharing. 51 52 53 Subsidized employment programs offer promising evidence of short-run success, but less is known about the factors that contribute to long-term impacts in employment, earnings, and reduced recidivism. 54

Finally, there are many new technology-oriented changes and pilots that are worth studying and evaluating. For example, Code for America partnered with local governments to expunge records for offenses that are no longer illegal. 55 Research is needed to assess how these tools can help improve the implementation of second chance relief. 56 In addition, virtual reality and other technologies are being deployed in multiple states to prepare people for release through immersive exposure to scenarios they are likely to encounter and for training and education. 57 58 As new background search techniques are deployed with machine learning technologies, 59 research is needed to assess their ethical and discriminatory impacts, and to develop regulatory standards for their use. More research and funding are needed to evaluate these technologies, assess quality and ethical use, and update policy in response.

Recommended Reading

Center for Justice Research and Black Public Defender Association. Save Black Lives: A Call for Racially-Responsive Strategies and Resources for the Black Community during COVID-19 Pandemic. Houston, TX: Texas Southern University, 2020. Available at: https://www.centerforjusticeresearch.org/reports/save-black-lives

• Cummings, Danielle, and Dan Bloom. Can Subsidized Employment Programs Help Disadvantaged Job Seekers? A Synthesis of Findings from Evaluations of 13 Programs. MDRC, OPRE Report 2020–23. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services., 2020. Available at: www.mdrc.org/publication/can-subsidized-employment-programs-help-disadvantaged-job-seekers.

Gould-Werth, Alix, Samina Sattar, Jennifer Henderson-Frakes, et al. LEAP Issue Brief Compendium: Delivering Workforce Services to Justice-Involved Job Seekers Before and After Release. Mathematica Policy Research and Social Policy Research Associates 2018. Princeton, NJ and Oakland, CA. Available at: https://www.mathematica.org/our-publications-and-findings/publications/leap-issue-brief-compendium-delivering-workforce-services-to-justice-involved-job-seekers-before

Mallik-Kane, Kamala, and Christy Ann Visher. Health and prisoner reentry: How physical, mental, and substance abuse conditions shape the process of reintegration. Washington, DC: Urban Institute and Justice Policy Center, 2008.

Lacoe, Johanna and Hannah Betesh. Supporting Reentry Employment and Success: A Summary of the Evidence for Adults and Young Adults. Princeton, NJ and Oakland, CA: Mathematica Policy Research by Social Policy Research Associates, 2018. Available at: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OASP/evaluation/pdf/REOSupportingReentryEmploymentRB090319.pdf

National Research Council. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2014.

United Nations. UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules), 1957. New York, 1975. Available at: https://www.penalreform.org/resource/standard-minimum-rules-treatment-prisoners-smr/

Western, Bruce. “Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison”. Russell Sage Foundation, 2018.

Pew Charitable Trusts. Policy Reforms Can Strengthen Community Supervision: A framework to improve probation and parole, 2020. Available at: https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2020/04/policyreform_communitysupervision_report_final.pdf

Harding David J., Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and Jessica J.B. Wyse. “On the Outside: Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration”. University of Chicago Press, 2019.

• James, Nathan. “Offender Reentry: Correctional Statistics, Reintegration into the Community, and Recidivism”, 2015. Correctional Research Service, RL34287. Available at: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34287.pdf.
• Ramakers, Anke A. T., et al., “Returning to a Former Employer: A Potentially Successful Pathway to Ex-prisoner Re-employment,” The British Journal of Criminology, vol. 56, no. 4, 2016, pp. 668–688. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azv063.
• Gaes, Gerald G., and Newton Kendig. From prison to home: The effect of incarceration and reentry on children, families, and communities: The skill sets and health care needs of released offenders. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 2002; Landenberger, N. A., & Lipsey, M. W. “The positive effects of cognitive-behavioral programs for offenders: A meta-analysis of factors associated with effective treatment.” Journal of experimental criminology. vol. 1, no. 4, 2005, pp. 451–476. Available at: doi:10.1007/s11292-005-3541-7.; Mallik-Kane, Kamala, and Christy A. Visher. Health and prisoner reentry: How physical, mental, and substance abuse conditions shape the process of reintegration, 2008. Washington, DC: Urban Institute & Justice Policy Center, p. 82, 2008. Available at: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/31491/411617-Health-and-Prisoner-Reentry.PDF. Yang, Crystal S. “Does public assistance reduce recidivism?” American Economic Review, vol. 107, no. 5, 2017, pp.551–55; Council of State Governments Justice Ctr. Reducing recidivism: States deliver results, 2018. Available at: http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/Yang_920.pdf. Link, N. W., Ward, J. T., & Stansfield, R. 2019. “Consequences of mental and physical health for reentry and recidivism: Toward a health‐based model of desistance.” Criminology, vol. 57, no. 3, 2019, 544–573. Available at: doi:10.1111/1745-9125.12213. Couloute, Lucius, and Daniel Kopf. “Out of prison & out of work: Unemployment among formerly incarcerated people,” Prison Policy Initiative, 2018, Accessed 12 April 2021. Available at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/outofwork.html
• Clear, Todd. R. Studies in crime and public policy. Imprisoning communities: How mass incarceration makes disadvantaged neighborhoods worse. Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Sampson, R. J., & Loeffler, C. “Punishment’s place: the local concentration of mass incarceration.” Daedalus, vol. 139, no. 3, 2010, pp. 20–31. Available at: doi:10.1162/daed_a_00020.
• Simes, Jessica Tayloe. “Essays on Place and Punishment in America.” Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, 2016.
• Sampson, Robert J., William Julius Wilson, and Hanna Katz . “Reassessing ‘Toward A Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality:’ Enduring and New Challenges in 21st Century America.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, vol. 15, no. 1, 2018, pp. 13–34. Available at: doi:10.1017/s1742058x18000140.
• Center for Justice Research and Black Public Defender Association. Save Black Lives: A Call for Racially-Responsive Strategies and Resources for the Black Community during COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020. Houston, TX: Texas Southern University.
• Carson, Ann E. Prisoners in 2019. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2020, NCJ 255115. Available at: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p19.pdf.
• Visher, Christy A., and Jeremy Travis. “Transitions from prison to community: Understanding individual pathways.” Annual review of sociology, vol. 29, no. 1, 2003, pp. 89–113.
• Lewis, Nicole, and Beth Schwartzapfel. “Prisons Are Releasing People Without COVID-19 Tests Or Quarantines.” The Marshall Project, 19 Jan. 2021. Available at: www.themarshallproject.org/2021/01/19/prisons-are-releasing-people-without-covid-19-tests-or-quarantines.
• Initiative, Prison Policy. “As COVID-19 Continues to Spread Rapidly, State Prisons and Local Jails Have Failed to Mitigate the Risk of Infection behind Bars.” Prison Policy Initiative, 2 Dec. 2020. Available at: www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/12/02/jail-and-prison-covid-populations.
• Feeding America. “Food Banks Responding to Rising Need | Feeding America.” Feeding America, 22 Dec. 2020, Available at: www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/nine-months-later-food-banks-continue-responding-rising-need-help.
• Max, Samantha. “Those Released from Prison Find Reentry Much Harder Due to COVID-19.” Marketplace, 14 July 2020. Available at: www.marketplace.org/2020/07/14/covid-19-prison-inmates-reentering-society.
• San Francisco State University Project Rebound. “Lessons from Formerly Incarcerated Students During COVID-19.” Associated Students, Accessed 12 April 2021. Available at: http://asi.sfsu.edu/project-rebound-covid-19-support/.
• Chien, Colleen V., “America’s Paper Prisons: The Second Chance Gap (December 16, 2020).” Michigan Law Review, Forthcoming. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3265335.
• Note: An estimated 74 percent of people incarcerated in jails are in pre-trial detention. The recommendation for providing job center support, education, and other reentry services in jails is most pertinent to the 26 percent of the jail population who have been sentenced. Other policies are necessary for prevention and to minimize the jail population in pre-trial detention, but they are outside the scope of this brief. Source: Sawyer, Wendy, and Peter Wagner. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020.” Prison Policy Initiative, 24 Mar. 2020. Available at: www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html#slideshows/slideshow1/2.
• Jacobs, James B. The Eternal Criminal Record. Harvard University Press, 2015.; Pager, Devah. Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in the Era of Mass Incarceration. University of Chicago Press, 2007. Available at: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5485761.html.
• Evans, Douglas N., et al. “Examining Housing Discrimination across Race, Gender and Felony History.” Housing Studies, vol. 34, no. 5, 2018, pp. 761–78. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2018.1478069.
• Stewart, Robert, and Christopher Uggen. “Criminal Records and College Admissions: A Modified Experimental Audit.” Criminology, vol. 58, no. 1, 2019, pp. 156–88. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12229.
• Schanzenbach, Diane, et al. Twelve Facts about Incarceration and Prisoner Reentry. The Hamilton Project, 2016. Accessed 12 April 2021. Available at: https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/12_facts_about_incarceration_prisoner_reentry.pdf.
• Denver, Megan, Garima Siwach, and Shawn D. Bushway. “A new look at the employment and recidivism relationship through the lens of a criminal background check.” Criminology, vol. 55, 2017, pp. 174–204. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12130. Prescott, J. J. and Sonja Starr. “Expungement of Criminal Convictions: An Empirical Study.” Harvard Law Review, vol. 133, no. 8, 2020, pp. 2460–2555. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9125.12130.
• EEOC. U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcement guide, 2012. no. 915.002.
• Pager, Devah. Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in the Era of Mass Incarceration. University of Chicago Press, 2007. Available at: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5485761.html.
• Agan, A. and Sonja Starr. “Ban the box, criminal records, and racial discrimination: A field experiment.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 133, no. 1, 2018, pp. 191–235. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjx028. Doleac, Jennifer L., and Benjamin Hansen. “The unintended consequences of “ban the box”: Statistical discrimination and employment outcomes when criminal histories are hidden.” Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 38, no. 2, 2020, pp. 321-374. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/705880.
• Bushway, Shawn D. and Nidhi Kalra. “A Policy Review of Employers; Open Access to Conviction Records.” Annual Review of Criminology, vol. 4, 2021, no. 16.1–16.25. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-061020-021622.
• Lucken, K. and Ponte, L.M. “A Just Measure of Forgiveness: Reforming Occupational Licensing Regulations for Ex‐Offenders Using BFOQ Analysis.” Law & Policy, vol. 30, 2008, pp. 46–72. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9930.2008.00269.x.
• Yang, Crystal S. “Does public assistance reduce recidivism?“ American Economic Review, vol. 107, no. 5, 2017, pp.551–55. Available at: http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/Yang_920.pdf.
• Bushway, Shawn; Shauna Briggs, Faye Taxman, Meridith Thanner, and Mischelle Van Brakle. “Private Providers of Criminal History Records: Do You Get What You Pay For?” in Bushway, Shawn, Michael Stoll, and David Weiman (eds.) The Impact of Incarceration on Labor Market Outcomes. Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2007, p. 174–200.; Lageson, Sarah E. Digital Punishment: Privacy, Stigma, and the Harms of Data-Driven Criminal Justice. Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Bushway, Shawn, Michael Stoll, and David Weiman (eds.) The Impact of Incarceration on Labor Market Outcomes. Russell Sage, 2007. Travis, Jeremy. But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry, 2005. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
• Cummings, Danielle, and Dan Bloom. Can Subsidized Employment Programs Help Disadvantaged Job Seekers? A Synthesis of Findings from Evaluations of 13 Programs. MDRC, OPRE Report 2020–23. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services., 2020. Available at: www.mdrc.org/publication/can-subsidized-employment-programs-help-disadvantaged-job-seekers. Foley, Kimberly, Mary Farrell, Riley Webster, and Johanna Walter. Reducing Recidivism and Increasing Opportunity. Benefits and Costs of the RecycleForce Enhanced Transitional Jobs Program. MDRC, MEF Associates, 2018. Available at: https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/ETJD_STED_Benefit_Cost_Brief_508.pdf. Redcross, Cindy, Megan Millenky, Timothy Rudd, and Valerie Levshin. More than a job: Final results from the evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) transitional jobs program. OPRE Report, 2011–18. New York, NY: MDRC and Vera Institute, 2012. Available at: https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/full_451.pdf. Dutta-Gupta, Indivar, Kali Grant, Matthew Eckel, and Peter Edelman, P. Lessons learned from 40 years of subsidized employment programs: A framework, review of models, and recommendations for helping disadvantaged workers. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Law, Center on Poverty and Inequality, 2016. Available at: https://www.georgetownpoverty.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GCPI-Subsidized-Employment-Paper-20160413.pdf.
• Bellotti, Jeanne, et al. Developing American Job Centers in Jails: Implementation of the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release LEAP) Grants. Princeton, NJ and Oakland, CA: Mathematica Policy Research and Social Policy Research Associates, 2018. Available at: https://www.georgetownpoverty.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GCPI-Subsidized-Employment-Paper-20160413.pdf.
• See also Duwe, Grant and Makada Henry-Nickie, “Training and Employment for Correctional Populations,” in chapter 6 of this report.
• Western, Bruce. Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison. Russell Sage Foundation, 2018.
• Lacoe, Johanna and Hannah Betesh. “Supporting Reentry Employment and Success: A Summary of the Evidence for Adults and Young Adults.” Princeton, NJ and Oakland, CA: Mathematica Policy Research by Social Policy Research Associates, 2018. Available at: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OASP/evaluation/pdf/REOSupportingReentryEmploymentRB090319.pdf.
• Bellotti, Jeanne, et al. Developing American Job Centers in Jails: Implementation of the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release LEAP) Grants. Princeton, NJ and Oakland, CA: Mathematica Policy Research and Social Policy Research Associates, 2018. Available at: https://www.mdrc.org/publication/can-subsidized-employment-programs-help-disadvantaged-job-seekers.
• Sinkewicz, Marilyn, Yu-Fen Chiu, and Leah Pope. Sharing Behavioral Health Information Across Justice and Health Systems. Vera Institute of Justice, 2018. Available at: https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/Sharing-Behavioral-Health-Information-across-Justice-and-Health-Systems-Full-Report.pdf. Milgram, Anne, Jeffrey Brenner, Dawn Wiest, Virginia Bersch, and Aaron Truchil. Integrated Health Care and Criminal Justice Data: Viewing the Intersection of Public Safety, Public Health, and Public Policy Through a New Lens: Lessons from Camden, New Jersey. Harvard Kennedy School, Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, 2018. Available at: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/wiener/programs/pcj/files/integrated_healthcare_criminaljustice_data.pdf.
• Garland, David. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Oxford University Press, 2001. Simon, Jonathan. Poor Discipline. University of Chicago Press, 1993. Petersilia, Joan. When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry. Oxford University press, 2003.
• Harding, David J., et al. “The short- and long-term effects of imprisonment on future felony convictions and prison admissions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017. Available at: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/42/11103.
• Margaret J. Frossard. “The Detainer Process: The Hidden Due Process Violation in Parole Revocation,” 1976. 52 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 716. Available at: https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol52/iss3/11/.
• Bushway, Shawn D., and Raymond Paternoster. “Desistance from Crime: A Review and Ideas for Moving Forward.” In: Gibson C., Krohn M. (eds.) Handbook of Life-Course Criminology. Springer, 2013. Available at: doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5113-6_13.
• Pew Charitable Trusts. Policy Reforms Can Strengthen Community Supervision: A framework to improve probation and parole, 2020. Available at: https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2020/04/policyreform_communitysupervision_report_final.pdf.
• California State Auditor. “California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: Several Poor Administrative Practices Have Hindered Reductions in Recidivism and Denied Inmates Access to In‑Prison Rehabilitation Programs.” 2019, Report 2018-113. Available at: https://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2018-113.pdf. Mukamal, Debbie, Rebecca Silbert and Rebecca M. Taylor. “Degrees of Freedom: Expanding College Opportunities for Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Californians, 2015. Available at: https://law.stanford.edu/index.php?webauth-document=child-page/443444/doc/slspublic/DegreesofFreedom2015_FINAL.pdf. Stanford Criminal Justice Center. Corrections to College California. “Don’t Stop Now: California leads the nation in using public higher education to address mass incarceration. Will we continue?” 2018. Available at: https://risingscholarsnetwork.org/assets/general/dont-stop-now-report_v2.pdf. Pompoco, Amanda, John Wooldredge, Melissa Lugo, et al. “Reducing Inmate Misconduct and Prison Returns with Facility Education Programs.” Criminology & Public Policy, vol. 16, 2017, pp. 515-547. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12290. Mackenzie, Doris L. What Works in Corrections. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Petersilia, Joan. When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry. Oxford University press, 2003. Wexler, Harry K., Gregory P. Falkin, and Douglas S. Lipton. Outcome Evaluation of a Prison Therapeutic Community for Substance Abuse Treatment. Criminal Justice and Behavior, vol. 17, no. 1, 1990, pp. 71–92. Stainbrook, Kristin, Jeanine Hanna, and Amy Salomon. The Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Study: The Characteristics and Components of RSAT Funded Treatment and Aftercare Services: Final Report. New York, NY: Advocates for Human Potential, 2017. Available at: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/250715.pdf.
• Visher, Christy A., et al. “Evaluating the Long-Term Effects of Prisoner Reentry Services on Recidivism: What Types of Services Matter?” Justice Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 1, 2016, pp. 136–65. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2015.1115539.
• Harding, David J., Morenoff, Jeffrey D., and Jessica J.B. Wyse. “On the Outside: Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration.” University of Chicago Press, 2019.
• Bushway, Shawn D. and Raymond Paternoster, “Desistance from Crime: A Review and Ideas for Moving Forward.” In: Gibson C., Krohn M. (eds.) Handbook of Life-Course Criminology. Springer, 2013. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5113-6_13.
• Lacoe, Johana, and Hannah Betesh. “Supporting Reentry Employment and Success: A Summary of the Evidence for Adults and Young Adults.” Princeton, NJ and Oakland, CA: Mathematica Policy Research by Social Policy Research Associates, 2019. Available at: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OASP/evaluation/pdf/REOSupportingReentryEmploymentRB090319.pdf.
• D’Amico, Ronald and Hui Kim. “Evaluation of Seven Second Chance Act Adult Demonstration Programs: Impact Findings at 30 Months”. Oakland, CA: Social Policy Research Associates, 2018. Available at: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/251702.pdf.
• Fontaine, Jocelyn, et al. “Safer Return Demonstration: Impact Findings from a Research-Based Community Reentry Initiative”, Washington, D.C: Urban Institute, 2015. Available at: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/56296/2000276-Safer-Return-Demonstration-Impact-Findings-from-the-Research-Based-Community-Reentry-Initiative.pdf.
• Milgram, Anne, et al., “Integrated Health Care and Criminal Justice Data: Viewing the Intersection of Public Safety, Public Health, and Public Policy Through a New Lens: Lessons from Camden, New Jersey. Harvard Kennedy School, Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management.” Harvard Kennedy School, Papers from the Executive Session on Community Corrections, April 2018. Available at: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/wiener/programs/pcj/files/integrated_healthcare_criminaljustice_data.pdf.
• Toran-Burrell, Toran-Burrell, Alia, and David Crawford. “Record Clearance at Scale: How Clear My Record Helped Reduce or Dismiss 144,000 Convictions in California.” Code for America, 23 Sept. 2020. Available at: www.codeforamerica.org/news/record-clearance-at-scale-how-clear-my-record-helped-reduce-or-dismiss-144-000-convictions-in-california.
• Chien, Colleen V., “America’s Paper Prisons: The Second Chance Gap” December 16, 2020. 119 MICH. L. REV. 519 (2020), Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3265335.
• Institute for the Future. “IFTF: {VR} for Reentry.” Institute for the Future, 2021. Available at: www.iftf.org/vrforreentry.
• Smith, Matthew J., et al. “Enhancing Vocational Training in Corrections: A Type 1 Hybrid Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol for Evaluating Virtual Reality Job Interview Training among Returning Citizens Preparing for Community Re-Entry.” Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications, vol. 19, no. 2451–8654, 2020, p. 100604. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conctc.2020.100604.
• Dattner, Ben, et al. Harvard Business Review. The Legal and Ethical Implications of Using AI in Hiring, 25 Apr. 2019. Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/04/the-legal-and-ethical-implications-of-using-ai-in-hiring.

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• Policy Solutions
• Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today's Leaders

Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today’s Leaders

• Inimai M. Chettiar
• Priya Raghavan
• Download Policy Solution
• Changing Incentives
• Social & Economic Harm
• Cutting Jail & Prison Populations

The American public has decisively concluded that our approach to criminal justice isn’t working.

Mass incarceration is the civil rights crisis of our time. The racial disparities pervasive in our justice system compound at every juncture: African Americans are more likely to be stopped by police, arrested, detained before trial, and given harsher sentences than whites. Worse, the disparities in our justice system perpetuate racial inequity in our society more broadly.

In this remarkable collaboration, the country’s most prominent lawmakers and activists join together to propose ideas for transformative change. In these essays, they lay out their proposals to reduce the prison population and challenge our very conception of justice reform, paving the way for far-reaching political and cultural change. Marking a clear shift from the draconian rhetoric of the past, these essays take on the web of harmful policies that fuel mass incarceration and diminish opportunities for communities of color.

How do we achieve change? From eliminating prison for lower-level crimes to incentivizing states to decarcerate, from ending money bail to abolishing private prisons, from reforming housing and employment laws to changing the public perception of the justice system and cultivating respect for all lives, the ideas in this book offer a path forward: one rooted in fairness, equality, and humanity. The second volume in the series, Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today’s Leaders aims to further the momentum needed to achieve that vision. It builds on the 2015 Brennan Center publication profiling the Voices of national leaders, Solutions: American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice .

Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center for Justice

How can we end mass incarceration in America? By now, the debate is over: our nation grossly over-incarcerates its people. The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population and nearly one-quarter of its prisoners. Astonishingly, if the 2.3 million incarcerated Americans were a state, it would be more populous than 16 other states. All told, one in three people in the United States has some type of criminal record. No other industrialized country comes close. This system grew over decades in plain sight, and only a broad and bold national response will end it.

Mass incarceration has crushing consequences: racial, social, and economic. We spend around $270 billion per year on our criminal justice system. In California it costs more than $75,000 per year to house each prisoner — more than it would cost to send them to Harvard. Mass incarceration exacerbates poverty and inequality, serving as an economic ball and chain that holds back millions, making it harder to find a job, access public benefits, and reintegrate into the community.

Most disturbingly, the system profoundly discriminates against people of color at every juncture. African Americans are more likely to be stopped by police, arrested, detained before trial, and given harsher sentences than whites. As a result, they are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites. In some states, this disparity is more than ten to one. For too long, we have tolerated this civil rights crisis.

And mass incarceration simply is not necessary to keep our communities safe. Today, crime and murder rates remain near record lows nationwide. Our cities — many of which suffered under a wave of violent crime in the early 1990s — are largely safer than they have been in years. No one is entirely sure what caused the steady crime decline of the past two and a half decades. But it is clear that it owes little to harsh policies and the resulting increase in incarceration. In fact, 27 states have reduced both imprisonment and crime together from 2006 to 2014. It is increasingly clear that reform and safety go together.

For all these reasons, the politics of crime and punishment have changed fundamentally, in ways hard to imagine in an earlier era. Today, polls show widespread support for a less punitive approach. Once incendiary moves such as marijuana legalization or an end to the death penalty are finding political success and rising popularity. In red, blue, and purple states, lawmakers are beginning to respond and act.

At long last, a vibrant public conversation is underway. A 2015 Brennan Center publication,  Solutions: American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice , offered proposals from a bipartisan array of elected officials and advocates and helped move criminal justice reform to the center of the 2016 election. Since then, the nationwide consensus in favor of a new direction has only hardened. For the first time, the opportunity for truly transformative change is in view.

Last year, Congress took a step forward by overwhelmingly passing the bipartisan First Step Act. It shortened some of the most extreme federal drug sentences and expanded programming for incarcerated people. But in recent years, we’ve also seen the country’s leadership take grave steps back, from expanding immigration detention to reinstituting draconian federal charging policies. The First Step Act — which needs to be fully funded and implemented — will not fix our deeply broken system. But with both Democrats and Republicans committed to reform, it represents a new baseline. This breakthrough shows it is possible to make even bigger changes — and that the politics can align.

And federal policy matters. While the vast majority of the nation’s prison population is held in state facilities, what happens at the federal level sets the stage for the rest of the nation. Federal reforms can spur national culture change to end mass incarceration, and federal incentive funding can help states to decarcerate and provide support for innovative new ideas.

So, now, what’s the next step?

We need stronger, more comprehensive, and more far-reaching solutions from our nation’s leaders to address mass incarceration. It would be a missed opportunity to aim for anything less than fundamental change.

That’s why, in advance of the 2020 presidential election, we have again asked leaders representing communities most harmed by mass incarceration, as well as top policymakers, to offer their solutions. And we’ve urged them to think big. Each author has contributed an essay highlighting their own ideas for reform. Neither the Brennan Center nor I agree with all the content of the essays in this book, and each author would likely say the same. The Center sought to create a nonpartisan forum for sorely needed ideas to be publicly shared.

Over the past few years, the Brennan Center has outlined some key steps toward ending mass incarceration in the United States. To start, if the federal government and every state ended imprisonment for lower-level crimes and reduced overly long sentences for other crimes, we could safely cut the nation’s prison population by 40 percent. Second, if Congress passed a “reverse” of the 1994 Crime Bill to incentivize states through federal grants to decarcerate rather than incarcerate, it could spur nationwide change. Finally, federal lawmakers could transform how prosecutors operate by rewarding U.S. Attorneys’ offices that reduce incarceration and recidivism in their districts. These policies would bring down the federal prison population while encouraging states to do the same.

Reform, of course, goes beyond criminal law and the justice system itself. Unwinding the system of mass incarceration requires a new focus on spurring economic growth in low-income communities, addressing systemic racism, building a better system to address mental health, and more. In the essays that follow, authors lay out thoughtful paths for holistic reform.

Mass incarceration grew over decades. It may seem a permanent fact. But public awareness, public anger, and public commitment have begun to change that. All of us must ensure that we do not subject another generation of young people of color to a destructive cycle of incarceration and poverty. We need solutions as far-reaching as the problem they address. Only then can we build a more equal, more democratic, and more united America. Few tasks could be more urgent.

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• Social & Economic Harm
• Cutting Jail & Prison Populations

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Introduction to prison reform, historical initiatives in prison reform, programs benefiting inmates, medical attention in prisons, challenges with recidivism, management and guard training in prisons, reevaluating the cash bail system, conclusion: the urgent need for comprehensive reform.

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How We Survived Extreme Heat in Prison

Incarcerated journalists detail the first signs of a heat wave in prison — and how they’ve coped with record-breaking temperatures..

A fter a summer of record-breaking temperatures, scientists predict that 2024 could end up being the hottest year on record . For people in U.S. prisons and jails — who often lack access to even the most basic cooling measures — conditions behind bars exacerbate the risks of dangerously high temperatures.

Several courts have ruled that extreme temperatures in prison violate the Eighth Amendment’s provision against “cruel and unusual” punishment. But these rulings have not led to a widespread adoption of air-conditioning or other methods to cool prison facilities or prevent heat-related deaths. Public health researchers at Brown University estimate that just one day of above average summer temperatures is associated with a nearly 4% increase in prison deaths. Suicides spike 23% in the three days following a heat wave. And for every 10 degrees above the average summer temperature, prison deaths increase 5 %.

As summer temperatures shattered records across the country, The Marshall Project and Prison Journalism Project asked several incarcerated reporters to document the impact of extreme heat on their facilities. Their stories reveal the brutal reality: frequent medical emergencies, increased tension among the incarcerated, and little respite from the heat.

Derek R. Trumbo Sr., 46, Kentucky

Derek Trumbo is a writer incarcerated at Northpoint Training Center. He is a member of Voices Inside, a prison playwrights’ workshop, and he is a multiple-time Pen America Prison Writing Award winner, who has also been published by The Vera Institute of Justice.

The heat affects everyone in prison.

One day in late July, the temperature outside got up to around 100 degrees. The very hot days tend to run together, melting and merging in the heat. But I remember this particular day because during a routine training session of the prison’s Certified Emergency Response Team (CERT) a correctional officer collapsed and died.

He suffered a heart condition. Nurses attempted to resuscitate him, but he passed away at the hospital. The entire prison mourned the 24-year-old man’s passing. Local news stations reported on it, and officers wore black rings around their badges to show solidarity and compassion.

Even though the heat can be deadly, the prison offers little respite. Our windows are riveted shut, and there are no trees in the yard to offer a single lick of shade. In the sweltering blister of summer, the prison’s pastoral landscape — with its amazing sunrises and sunsets — only magnifies the sun’s intensity.

Inside the prison, the dingy white linoleum floors become slick and damp with the brown water oozing from the overhead water pipes that sweat with condensation. The puddles sit as if a small child had spilled ice cream on hot asphalt in the desert.

If the air-conditioning goes out, as it often does during a heatwave, the prison will roll out large industrial fans that circulate the hot air like a convection oven.

The communications director for the Kentucky Justice & Public Safety Cabinet stated that prison leadership equips facilities with free “cooling stations, industrial fans, water bottles, extra blankets and clothing.” They would not comment on specific maintenance issues but added that their leadership “act[s] swiftly and work[s] through the state procurement system to quickly fix.” Regarding details about the facility, they added that the “Department of Corrections does not confirm or deny facility layout and structure.”

Ashleigh Smith, 39, Michigan

Ashleigh Smith is a writer incarcerated at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility. She has taken a creative writing class through Eastern Michigan University and has been published in The Oakland Arts Review through Oakland University.

The first sign of extreme heat in my prison is a smell that comes from the walls, which hold in the heat until they sweat. The stench reminds me of the rolled up floor mats the wrestling team used for practice in high school.

The next signal is when my peers and I change into tank tops or white T-shirts during count instead of the stifling navy blue uniform — even though we risk getting written up. And the final sign is when the prison cancels medical appointments because the administration doesn’t want people overexerting themselves by walking long distances to get to an appointment.

Once, during an exceptionally warm week in August last year, I was supposed to push a friend in a wheelchair a little under a quarter mile to one of the health care areas for a routine treatment, but the unit officers had locked the wheelchairs away to make sure nobody left the unit. It was 103 degrees.

Not having control over the water temperature in the shower is the hardest part of being in prison during a heatwave. When I come back to my housing unit after being called out, and I’m sweaty, I just want to take a cool shower to rinse off. But instead I have to get in a scalding hot shower.

According to the Michigan Department of Corrections’ public information office, incarcerated people “do not risk getting written up if they wear their white [T]-shirt during count.” They also stated that “medical appointments are not canceled due to heat, but some restrictions in movement may be made because of the heat index.” They did not respond to questions about locking away wheelchairs.

Ryan Green, 33, North Carolina

Ryan Green is a writer and military veteran currently housed at FCI Butner Medium I. He writes about the treatment of incarcerated people and the need for justice reform.

In a heat wave, the prison doesn’t do anything for the elderly, sick or more vulnerable, even though we are in a medical facility. Once, I had a cellie who had what I thought was a heart attack due to the heat and lack of hydration. He told me he was feeling dizzy, had pain in his chest and arm, and was short of breath. He said that when he went to the medical unit, the staff told him to drink more water and sent him back. But they don’t supply bottled water in a facility where the water quality is known to be bad.

I have no way of knowing how hot it is in the summer months. The one thermostat I’ve seen is in the UNICOR factory, where there is air-conditioning for the safety of the machines. But I know it’s too hot in my prison when I wake up soaked in sweat when the air-conditioning unit breaks in the living areas.

I’ve been in FCI Butner for nearly five years, and I have never seen my facility give us anything for a heat wave. Last spring, staff searched people’s cells, and wound up taking many people’s fans that they had purchased from the commissary. We can’t buy new ones because they no longer sell them.

The commissary sells water bottles for 50 cents, antifungal cream for $2.40, sunscreen for $4.80 and hats for $9.10. Many jobs here pay under 50 cents an hour, so buying supplies is expensive for us.

Citing privacy reasons, a representative of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Office of Public Affairs would not comment on the medical condition or treatment of Green’s cellmate. Regarding the water quality, the BOP stated that FCI Butner I, and the larger FCC Butner complex receive water from the same source as the local community and that it “meets community standards.” They also stated that “all housing units at FCI Butner I have functional HVAC air conditioners and ice machines” and that HVAC failures during inclement weather are promptly resolved. The BOP said it could not comment on the cell searches and fan confiscations for security reasons.

James Mancuso, 40, Idaho

James Mancuso is a writer and poet. He was the editor in chief of The High Seas of Saguaro, a prison newsletter published at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona. He is currently serving time at Idaho State Correctional Institution.

When I was incarcerated in a private prison in Arizona back in 2023, the temperature reached 118 degrees one summer. I remember because the prison canceled recreation, but they made everyone stand in an outdoor line under a canopy for medication handouts for about 45 minutes. It felt like we were in an oven. Even the breeze was hot.

In my current prison, older and sick people can have in-house meals so they don’t have to walk across the breezeways that are open to the sun and sky. People in some units have to walk a quarter mile to cross the compound.

During a heatwave we still have to wear our prison uniform: blue jeans and a blue button-up short- or long-sleeved shirt. Thankfully, the prison allows us to wear our commissary-purchased shorts and T-shirts to pick up our meals from the kitchen or go to recreation. But policy requires that we be dressed in our facility uniform for most other activities, including classes and work.

This year, the prison started giving us Gatorade when it gets hot. It can get up to 111 degrees here in Kuna, Idaho. I know because I saw the temperature on the news.

The manager of public affairs for CoreCivic, which operates the Arizona prison referenced, stated that the facility allows “heat-sensitive individuals” to receive their medications in air-conditioned medical unit waiting rooms.

Derek LeCompte, 44, New Jersey

Derek LeCompte has been incarcerated since 1999. An aspiring writer, poet and journalist, LeCompte is in his senior year at Rutgers University through NJ-STEP, pursuing a degree in Justice Studies. He is currently housed at South Woods State Prison.

Most of the time we never know how hot it is in our prison, but there are small digital thermometers in certain areas. Regularly, prison staff will go to units and measure the temps, but they don’t go into the cells, and results aren’t posted for us to see.

During very hot periods, the prison administration will send out memos about taking care in the heat. The prison offers a green “cooling towel,” which you wet with cold water and place on your head or the back of your neck. The towels stay cool for an extended period of time. But we have to buy that from the commissary. Because the commissary always has an issue with keeping high-demand things in stock it can take up to two weeks from order to delivery.

During the summer months, the prison rents what are called “chillers,” which are basically mobile, industrial air-conditioning units that look like a semi-trailer and run on diesel fuel. These chillers are hooked up to the prison’s ventilation system and, in theory, pump cool air into the prison. But the system often doesn’t cool down the prison much or frequently breaks down. The actual air-conditioning system has been broken for over 10 years and the administration has yet to fix it.

Most hot days, we are practically basting and cooking in our cells as if we’re in a brick oven. All the air is hot and recycled through our ventilation system. We can’t even open the windows when it gets cooler at night.

A spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Corrections stated that there have been “occasions when one of the two chillers have required maintenance, but never both at once.” He said that when one chiller breaks down, the other maintains “a comfortable temperature” and “the vendor is contacted to fix the equipment.” He also added that the department is “aware of the issues with the current chillers at [the prison] and [has] been seeking funding to replace both systems.”

Amy McBride, 61, Pennsylvania

Amy McBride is a writer serving time in the State Correctional Institution at Muncy.

In my previous prison, Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, it would get so hot during the summer that walls would sweat and reek of 85-year-old prison funk. The sweat would make all your belongings smell. It didn’t matter the number of showers you took — you still stunk.

The humidity of the Mid-Atlantic summer also made everything wet. I would think about my dad a lot during those hot summer days because, as a Vietnam vet, he had PTSD, and heat like that triggered him.

People were housed in cells that were so small you could touch the opposite walls at once in that prison. We did our best to keep the sun out — covering the windows with a robe — until a guard forced us to take it down. The heat was unbearable. I remember guards would hand out ice, but oftentimes it was melted by the time you got some.

Compared to my old prison in Maryland, SCI Muncy is like a Club Med resort . Now, on extremely hot days the air-conditioning in my unit is so cold I have to wear thermals, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, pants and my winter headband over my ears. To keep my hands warm, I blow on my fingers or wear my garden gloves.

On hot Sundays, I can’t wear my hearing aids during church service because the fans sound like plane engines. I can’t hear the sermon and all I can do is pray.

The Maryland Department of Corrections said it takes “multiple steps to mitigate the heat and ensure the health and well-being of both incarcerated individuals and staff.” The department denied that condensation forms on cell walls during the summer months and could not confirm the dimensions of prisoners’ cells.

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Aala Abdullahi Email is an engagement reporter for The Marshall Project. She previously served as the innovation editor at Sahan Journal, where she led the successful completion of the Citizen Lab project, a comprehensive investigation into the news needs of Minnesota's Latino, Somali, and Hmong communities.

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