Public Safety

The Issue

In the United States, nearly 700,000 people are released from prison each year, and an estimated 9 million individuals are released from jail.¹ These men and women often return to high-crime communities that are ill-equipped to receive and support them. In 2002, 55 percent of parolees returned to prison for parole violations or for committing new crimes. Within three years of their release, nearly two-thirds of people exiting U.S. prisons are re-arrested.² Policymakers across the country are exploring innovative responses to these pressing problems to encourage individuals’ successful reentry from prison to the community and to ensure public safety.

Challenges

• Laws that limit the ability to ensure post-release supervision or to impose terms and conditions of release that compel participation in programs designed to reduce criminal behavior
• Dearth of validated, evidence-based instruments or complete criminal histories to guide decisions about release and insufficient information about what terms and conditions of release are most likely to keep a person from returning to prison or jail
• Overwhelming caseloads for community corrections officers
• Limited options (other than reincarceration or ignoring the violation) available to respond to violations of conditions of release
• Uniform allocation of resources that disregards the differing risks and needs that each individual returning from prison or jail presents and is not concentrated in the period of time immediately before and after release
• Need for coordination and information-sharing between local law enforcement, community supervision agencies, and service providers

Related Justice Center Project

Reentry and Law Enforcement

The Council of State Governments Justice Center has partnered with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to develop resources that promote law enforcement involvement in reentry initiatives.

Click here to learn more about this project.

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¹ W.J. Sabol, T.D. Minton and P.M. Harrison, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, D.C.: 2007), available at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim06.pdf; Allen J. Beck, "The Importance of Successful Reentry to Jail Population Growth," presented at the Urban Institute Reentry Roundtable, June 27, 2006, Washington, D.C.
² Patrick A. Langan and David J. Levin, Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, D.C.: 2002), NCJ 193427.