How Criminal Justice Reform Will Save the Nation Billions
Criminal justice reform has been gaining support from tens of millions of people across the country in recent years. There are efforts to repair the damaged system that focus on every aspect of it, from policing, to courts and legal proceedings, to conditions within prisons and jails. Some topics that get less attention, however, are recidivism and the challenges faced by people that have finished serving their sentence.
Unfortunately these issues are difficult to bring attention to because most people feel that it is too late for any kind of reform to benefit people that have already been incarcerated. It is easy to think that the only way to advance society is to reduce the number of people that go to prison. While this is an incredible goal with the potential to help millions of people, there are already about 70 million people in the United States that have a criminal record, and helping them reintegrate into society would benefit everyone in the nation in several ways.
Reduce Recidivism
Recidivism is when someone who has already been released from prison commits another crime and is arrested again — and it is a major problem in our country. According to a report published by the US Department of Justice in 2018, about 45% of people released from prison were rearrested within 1 year, 68% within 3 years, and 83% within 9 years.
To fully address this issue we would need to dive deep into the prison-industrial complex and the way that it affects people, but one major solution lies in the treatment of formerly incarcerated individuals. The unemployment rate among people with criminal records is about 27%, which is greater than the unemployment rate at any point in U.S. history, including the Great Depression. Employment is extremely important for this category, as people that find jobs after they are released from prison are about half as likely to return to prison as their unemployed counterparts. Going even further, the Center for American Progress reports that, “among employed re-entrants, individuals who earned higher wages — more than $10 per hour in 2008 — were half as likely to recidivate as those who earned low wages, or less than $7 per hour in 2008.”
Financial stability has a clear, inverse correlation with returning to prison, meaning people that have already been incarcerated only turn back to crime when they have no other options. By giving people the tools they need to succeed, we have the ability to make everyone safer and reduce both the number of people that are incarcerated, and crime rates across the country.
Improve Company Performance
One thing that many companies don’t realize is that people with criminal records can actually make better employees. Studies have shown that they tend to be more loyal and hard-working, thereby improving productivity and reducing employee turnover.
In addition, hiring people with criminal records would address the nation-wide labor shortage since they make up such a large percentage of the working population. Finally, employers that hire formerly incarcerated individuals can save money on taxes since many of them qualify for WOTC tax credits. If you want to learn more about this or see our sources, you can check out the article we published recently about the effects of mass incarceration on businesses here.
Save Taxpayer Money and Boost GDP
Incarceration in the United States has direct and indirect costs, both on the people being incarcerated and the nation as a whole. On the direct side, in 2015 alone, $87 billion was spent on jails and prisons, which is almost 12 times more than the $7.4 billion spent in 1975. This follows an increase from 200,000 incarcerated people in 1972 to 2.2 million today. If incarceration rates in the U.S. were reduced to the global average (roughly 1/5th of the current rate) tens of billions of dollars could be saved every single year.
“Formerly incarcerated men are employed for nine fewer weeks per year on average and earn 40 percent less than otherwise similar never-incarcerated men.”
-Center for American Progress
For individuals, “formerly incarcerated men are employed for nine fewer weeks per year on average and earn 40 percent less than otherwise similar never-incarcerated men.” This results in $179,000 less in earnings by the time they reach 48 years of age.
Indirect costs come from the negative impacts of individuals not being able to rejoin society. With such a high rate of recidivism and unemployment among people with criminal records, billions of dollars worth of productivity is lost to the entire nation. This totals a reduction of between $78 and $87 billion to the national Gross Domestic Product. This is all money lost directly from the GDP, purely because it is more difficult for people with criminal records to find employment. Taking into account forgone wages, adverse health effects, and other social and economic costs on individuals, “[t]he total estimated cost burden of incarceration in the United States is more than $1 trillion per year — nearly 6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 11 times the amount spent on corrections.”
How We Can Make a Meaningful Impact
With billions of dollars lost each year and tens of millions of people affected by this issue, we cannot afford to not take action. There are steps that everyone can take in order to change this country for the better.
If you are an individual, the most powerful change you can make is supporting the organizations that are already working to solve the problems. There are countless charities that do incredible work and you can find some that inspire you with a few Google searches, but some of the ones that have inspired us are the College and Community Fellowship, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Marshall Project, and the Brennan Center for Justice. Beyond that, you can support education and career training for people that are incarcerated, and legislation aimed at reducing incarceration by informing your state and local representatives via email or phone call.
If you are a business that is in need of improved productivity and loyalty, you can start by signing the Fair Chance Business Pledge. By signing the pledge, you can join the hundreds of notable organizations and businesses that have committed to breaking down employment barriers, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Intel, American Airlines, and so many more.
Finally, you can check out SquareOneJobs, a smart, comprehensive, new job service portal with the goal of providing opportunity for everyone, regardless of the obstacles that they have overcome.
About SquareOneJobs
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