Last week Attorney General Eric Holder gave a good speech outlining the administration's approach to the problem of prisoner re-entry, taking the correct view that a high incarceration and recidivism rate has consequences for society, not just the individual incarcerated.
Those who commit crimes aren't the only ones who lose. In this country, 1 in 28 children has a parent behind bars. Studies show that these kids often struggle with anxiety, depression, learning problems, and aggression – undermining their own chances to succeed. In many cases, maintaining family relationships during incarceration can improve the lives of these children and reduce recidivism rates later on. And when quality, employment-centered programs are made available during and after incarceration, one demonstration showed they can cut recidivism rates in half.
This shows the administration is in the right place ideologically, but the effect of most recidivism programs is still very uncertain. A recent inspector general's report found that it was impossible to know if re-entry programs given grants from the Office of Justice Program were effective at reducing recidivism. That's a problem, because Holder was touting $100 million in grant funding for re-entry programs in this very speech. The funding comes from the Second Chance Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush.
There are bound to be some re-entry programs that are effective, and others that aren't, programs that work when staffed by highly motivated issues but can't be implemented on a large scale by the government. Unless there's a rigorous evaluation process that carefully determines which programs are effective and which aren't, the whole effort could be seen as just another giant waste of public money. Given that the population that stands to benefit from more effective re-entry policies doesn't have much of a political voice, that's not an impression the administration, the re-entry movement, the formerly incarcerated, or the communities they live in can afford.
