Re-Entry Programs: A Smart and Right Solution to Recidivism

Most public safety experts and penologists believe that if ex-offenders are put to work, then the nation will see fewer crimes on the street.  That makes intuitive sense.  A good job is essential for housing, family support, a positive credit rating, monthly bill payments—all the things that an ex-offender must manage to reintegrate successfully in the community. 

Central to achieving this objective, however, is recruiting businesses that will hire recently released ex-offenders, businesses that will provide stable employment to empower ex-offenders to handle the other challenges involved in re-entry. 

Department of Corrections’ statistics tracking the release of inmates from Indiana prisons show that Indianapolis receives increasing numbers of ex-offenders annually.  If these Hoosiers do not get a chance to succeed in decent jobs, they will easily re-offend and return to prison.  This is the well publicized revolving door of recidivism, a national problem. 

Currently, about four out of every 10 Indiana offenders go back to prison within three years of release, according to a study from the Pew Research Center.  That recidivism rate is unacceptable.  It costs the taxpayers of Indiana millions of dollars, increases pressures on the criminal justice system, and wastes the human potential of thousands of Indiana citizens who could not find their way to successful reintegration within their communities.

For some, it may be easier to build more prisons to handle recidivism and the growing prison population, but that is an expensive and most wasteful strategy.  Creating effective re-entry programs takes only a fraction of what it costs to build and maintain new prisons.  It also solves problems, rather than simply managing their results.

Moreover, such programs help ex-offenders find employment, putting them on the tax rolls to support growing city and state expenditures.  This adds to government budgets, not subtracts from them.  It also makes ex-offenders productive and fuels their successful re-entry.  It is the smart and economical solution to recidivism.  It is also the right thing to do.

 By David Richardson