include reducing or even eliminating reentry programs and treatment behind bars ... Programs vary in terms of content and quality, and their impact on recidivism ...
Speech Given to the Princeton University Policy Research Institute for the Region Nancy G. La Vigne, Ph.D. Today, the correctional system in the United States is at a critical crossroads. On one path, correctional leaders and their legislative counterparts have increasingly begun to embrace the concept of preparing prisoners for successful reintegration. They now publicly acknowledge that doing so can reduce the number of people that return to prison, while also lowering victimization in the community. Federal initiatives like the Second Chance Act are a testament to this new philosophy. On the other path is this bumpy road to economic recovery. If that recovery is happening, it is doing so at a slow pace, with state and county budgets shrinking rather than growing in the near term. The tension between these two paths is great: states, cities, and counties are seriously strapped for resources. These pressures are generating cost-cutting measures across the board—from the early release of prisoners to staff reductions. Unfortunately, those measures also include reducing or even eliminating reentry programs and treatment behind bars. The phrase “penny wise and pound foolish” comes to mind, in that these are the programs that will ultimately stem the flow of people recycling into the correctional system. A better way is to communicate more extensively and persuasively that reentry programs work and that they can be cost beneficial. But do reentry programs work? The answer is a definitive “it depends.” Some programs work for some populations in some situations. Programs vary in terms of content and quality, and their impact on recidivism varies accordingly. That is why the Urban Institute has partnered with the Council of State Governments on this topic in conjunction with the National Reentry Resource Center (funded by the Second Chance Act). Our charge is to develop an online, searchable “What Works in Reentry” compendium, employing criteria vetted by the academic community but tailored for use by practitioners and policymakers. While our findings on program effectiveness may be mixed, our research at the Urban Institute suggests that, programs aside, exposure to specific reentry practices is associated with better outcomes for exiting prisoners. Our landmark study, Returning Home: Understanding the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry, interviewed soon-to-be released prisoners in four states, following them in the community for up to a year. That research gleaned the following insights: • •
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Education, specifically obtaining one’s GED behind bars, is associated with higher rates of employment after release. Employment matters in preventing recidivism, but what makes the biggest difference is the wages one earns; released prisoners who earn $10–12 an hour are twice as likely to remain crime free than their employed counterparts earning minimum wage. Drug treatment behind bars is associated with lower rates of relapse in the community. Family support can make a tremendous difference in reentry outcomes. Those with strong financial and emotional support from family members are less likely to relapse and return to prison. (Nearly all participants interviewed said they had at least one supportive family member in their lives).
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These findings and others like them suggest that the last thing correctional agencies should do is to cut educational, employment, substance abuse treatment, and family reunification programs. To the contrary, in these tough economic times, agencies should consider increasing them in the interests of using reentry initiatives as a means of reducing the correctional population. This somewhat audacious proposition is based on the premise that programs to prepare people for release can be cost beneficial. Research on this topic is scant at best. While we have a wide array of findings on the effectiveness of educational, employment, and treatment programs in reducing recidivism, few studies explore whether the costs of achieving that impact on recidivism are outweighed by the savings to the justice system and society in terms of crimes averted. Research at the Urban Institute suggests, however, that programs can be cost-beneficial. John Roman conducted a cost-benefit analysis associated with a reentry program in Maryland that was found to be beneficial. He also conducted a simulated cost-benefit analysis of jail reentry programs and found that even marginal reductions in recidivism associated with a reentry program would be cost beneficial. These findings represent a glimmer of hope, provided that correctional administrators and legislators can support an effort to invest now to achieve savings that may not accrue until a few years later (when they may well be out of office, attacked by a political opponent charging that they are “soft on crime”). Nonetheless, these efforts are under way in a handful of states and localities. Termed “justice reinvestment,” the idea is that states and counties can save money by reducing correctional populations, reinvesting those savings into the communities most affected by mass incarceration in a way that helps prevent people from entering the criminal justice system in the first place. At the county level, where the Urban Institute is working with three jurisdictions to apply justice reinvestment locally, pilot sites are exploring ways to divert probation violators from jail time, increase the use of pretrial release, and expedite case processing—all with an interest of reducing the cost of their criminal justice populations. What’s encouraging is that justice reinvestment is being supported by the highest level of government. Congress has already appropriate $10 million in support of this initiative in 2010, and the Justice Reinvestment Act is working its way through Congress faster than the Second Chance Act did. The recent history of sentencing and incarceration practices in the United States has seen the political pendulum swing from rehabilitation and prison reform in the 1970s to the lock ’em up and throw away the key mentality of the late 1980s and 1990s. Today, the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward the rehabilitation model. Yet it may never swing all the way back again, because Americans are only as punitive as they can afford to be. This admittedly cynical view is one that policymakers can capitalize on in the current economic climate. We used to say we can no longer build our way out of the mess that we are in. Now we say we can no longer spend our way out of it. Perhaps the economy can push state and local governments to do what they should be doing anyway: increasing the use of prevention—from reentry programs behind bars to employment
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opportunities in the community—thereby minimizing the number of Americans behind bars while maintaining public safety.
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