Skip to page content

Prisoner Reentry

Featured

The transition from incarceration to life in the community has implications for public safety at large and for the communities into which the former prisoners are introduced. RAND research has explored how to prevent recidivism through correctional education, the public health issues of prisoner reentry, and the question of prisoner rehabilitation.

Report
Leveraging Technology to Support Prisoner Reentry
How can technology help ease the transition from jails or prisons back into the community—and ensure better outcomes for individuals who have been incarcerated?
May 3, 2022
Essay
What Programs Can Help Parents in Prison and Their Children?
Around 2.3 million people live in U.S. jails and prisons, and most of them are parents. What are prisons doing to help them be better parents when they get out? It's more than just a policy question—it's a social justice question.
May 2, 2022

Explore Prisoner Reentry

Journal Article
Failing to Follow the Rules: Can Imprisonment Lead to More Imprisonment Without More Actual Crime?
We find that people involved in low-level crime receiving a prison sentence are more likely than those with non-prison sentences to be re-imprisoned due to technical violations of parole, rather than due to new crimes.
Mar 30, 2023
Report
How Did COVID-19 Affect Prison Education?
Many U.S. correctional systems shut down or cut back on education and vocational programs because of the pandemic. But having to adapt to COVID-19 restrictions helped accelerate the adoption of online and hybrid learning models and the use of technology for prison education programs.
Mar 23, 2023
Journal Article
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Workers with a Criminal History
In this article, we use data from the NLSY97 COVID-19 Supplement to examine the extent to which workers with a criminal history record had employment disruptions during the early months of the pandemic.
Feb 14, 2023
Report
Promising Services for Justice-Involved Youth: A Scoping Review with Implications for the Los Angeles County Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act
The authors of this report provide a review of the literature that evaluates programs for youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system to identify promising and effective practices, describing implications for Los Angeles County.
Jan 5, 2023
News Release
L.A. Program to Divert Homeless from Jail into Supportive Housing Decreases Use of County Services
A program that diverts some people with a history of homelessness from Los Angeles County jails into permanent supportive housing can significantly lower taxpayer spending on services such as hospital care and shelter use.
Aug 16, 2022
Research Brief
Supportive Housing Program Broke the Jail-to-Homeless Cycle and Mostly Paid for Itself
The Just in Reach Pay for Success program diverted people with a history of homelessness from Los Angeles County jails into permanent supportive housing. It achieved a one-year housing stability rate of 82 percent. And most of its costs were offset by a reduction in the use of other county services.
Aug 16, 2022
Report
Just in Reach Pay for Success: Impact Evaluation and Cost Analysis of a Permanent Supportive Housing Program
This report examines a Los Angeles County initiative to provide long-term housing and supportive services as an alternative to jail for individuals with a history of homelessness and chronic behavioral or physical health conditions.
Aug 16, 2022
Commentary
States Have Leading Role to Play in Preventing Mass Shootings
As the United States grapples with how to prevent mass shootings, state governments might be best positioned to take the lead on long-term, sustainable efforts that prevent targeted violence.
Jun 13, 2022
Journal Article
State Targeted Violence Prevention: Programming & Key Performance Indicators
This resource is a guide for U.S. state governments as they seek to implement comprehensive targeted violence prevention (TVP) programming and evaluate its implementation, outcomes, and impact.
May 18, 2022
Journal Article
Supportive Housing for Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals With Criminal Justice Histories: Challenges and Opportunities Identified by Providers and Clients
To explore the service needs of sexual and gender minority individuals, we interviewed providers and clients from eight supportive housing organizations working with SGM populations in L.A. County.
May 12, 2022
Blog
How Data Can Help Refugees, Homelessness in L.A., Harm Reduction: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on tapping into Facebook data to help refugees, addressing homelessness in Los Angeles, understanding burnout among health care providers, and more.
May 6, 2022
Report
Evaluation of the Minnesota Department of Correction's Career Navigators Program: Final Report
The authors conducted an independent process and outcomes evaluation of the Minnesota Department of Corrections' Career Navigators program, which aimed to help people with educational and career opportunities before and after being incarcerated.
Feb 15, 2022
Report
Programs for Incarcerated Parents
About 2.7 million U.S. children have a parent in prison. This can strain the parent-child relationship and increase the risk for child delinquency, poor academic achievement, and social and emotional problems. What programs do prisons offer to support families? And are they responsive to needs based on gender and culture?
Feb 8, 2022
Blog
Extremism and Substance Use Disorder, Criminal Background Checks, Vaccine Diplomacy: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on the parallels between extremism and substance use disorder, a better way to measure recidivism risk, global vaccine diplomacy, and more.
Jan 7, 2022
Research Brief
A More Accurate Way to Predict Recidivism Risk in Background Checks
Roughly 30 percent of people in the United States have criminal histories, so exclusions resulting from background checks can foreclose job and other opportunities for many. But what if it were possible to show that some people pose a low risk of recidivism?
Jan 6, 2022
Report
How Different Sampling Methods Paint Vastly Different Pictures of Recidivism, and Why It Matters for Policy
In this paper, the authors argue that the recidivism statistics cited most often in debates about the collateral consequences of conviction overrepresent the behaviors of frequent recidivists and so are not appropriate evidence in those debates.
Jan 6, 2022
Report
Providing Another Chance: Resetting Recidivism Risk in Criminal Background Checks
The authors propose the reset principle that anchors assessments of recidivism risk at the time of a background check rather than the time of conviction, as current methods derived from the criminal justice context do.
Jan 6, 2022
Journal Article
Prior Punishments and Cumulative Disadvantage: How Supervision Status Impacts Prison Sentences
This article explores one way prior punishments may contribute to cumulative disadvantage: through more severe sentencing of those under criminal justice supervision.
Nov 10, 2021
Report
Final Evaluation of LA DOOR: Proposition 47 Grant Program
In this report, the authors summarize their findings from an evaluation of Cohort 1 of the Los Angeles Diversion, Outreach, and Opportunities for Recovery program.
Sep 30, 2021

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Next

RAND Topic:
Prisoner Reentry

Topic Synonyms:
Re-Entry Services

Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Emma Disley

Research Group Director, Home Affairs and Social Policy, RAND Europe

Emma Disley is director of the Home Affairs and Social Policy research group at RAND Europe, which conducts research in the fields of education, employment and crime and justice. Disley has over 13 years’ experience of leading research and analysis to support decisionmaking in UK government,…
Marika Booth

Statistical Analyst

Marika Suttorp Booth (she/her) is a statistical analyst at the RAND Corporation. Her current projects include systematic reviews and meta-analysis of social health determinants and mindfulness in the Army. She analyzes the impact of socio-economic and disability status on STAR ratings and is…

Explore Our People »