We’ve got a recidivism crisis in PA – half of all inmates in the state will be back in jail within 5 years of their release. If prison is for rehabilitation, it’s not working.
Whether this revolving-door syndrome is a result of faulty rehabilitation efforts by the Department of Corrections, the inmates’ personal failings, both, or something else, the revolving prison door costs taxpayers a staggering amount.
Take last year’s five-year recidivism rate of 55 percent. Of the 13,792 inmates released in 2005, 7,627 were back in prison last year. The state spends $32,059 annually per inmate, so that translated to a taxpayer tally of roughly $244 million.
And that price tag is likely to grow given that state officials estimate that the overall inmate population will climb from 51,400 today to 61,146 in 2014.
“I don’t think the public knows that,” Jocelyn Fontaine, of the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, said of the high cost of recidivism. “I don’t know if it’s an issue of out of sight, out of mind. I think they would be a bit more outraged about it if they knew.”
if 45% success is not good enough for you, what is your realistic improvement goal? 50%?? 99.999% what?
What I'd like is for far less prisoners to end up back in jail, which is clearly failing its "rehabilitation" mandate.
I wonder how much recidivism is related to the drug trade? My guess is a lot. If so, then a really simple solution would be to make drugs legal, regulated and taxed. I'm sure the prison population would plummet along with the recidivism rate.
Part of the problem is that our prisons are packed with felons convicted of minor drug offenses with no access to substance abuse programs, particularly with today's budget-cutting fervor. Another side of the issue is the lack of employment prospects upon release. Sadly, no one will hire people with a history of substance abuse.
Not only substance abuse problems, but any kind of criminal record can get one excluded from a lot of jobs, even menial ones.