About The Project
The Challenge
In the past 20 years, state spending on corrections has grown at a rate faster than nearly any other state budget item. Despite increasing corrections expenditures, recidivism rates remain high with half of all persons released from prison returning within three years.
Further, in every state, there are a handful of “high-stakes” communities to which most people released from prison return; these are also the communities where taxpayer-funded programs are disproportionately focused.
The Strategy
Justice reinvestment staff, with the help of expert consultants, work closely with state policymakers to advance fiscally-sound, data driven criminal justice policies to break the cycle of recidivism, avert prison expenditures and make communities safer.
To assist state policymakers, justice reinvestment staff is providing technical assistance to a limited number of states that demonstrate a bipartisan interest in the strategy:
- Step 1: Analyze the prison population and spending in the communities to which people in prison often return.
- Step 2: Provide policymakers with options to generate savings and increase public safety.
- Step 3: Quantify savings and reinvest in select high-stakes communities.
- Step 4: Measure the impact and enhance accountability.
Our Partners
Justice reinvestment staff work closely with outside partners to leverage the best expertise in criminal justice and comprehensive neighborhood development.
Our Funders
The justice reinvestment project, with support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and private grant makers such as The Pew Charitable Trusts, the JEHT Foundation, and the Open Society Institute is providing intensive technical assistance to a limited number of states that demonstrate a bipartisan interest in justice reinvestment.