1. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to The Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Does it Pay to Invest in Reentry Programming for Jail Inmates? John Roman Aaron Chalfin Justice Policy Center The Urban Institute Presented at: The Urban Institute Jail Reentry Roundtable Washington, DC June 27 th, 2006

2. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Study Findings Under a variety of conditions, jail-based reentry programs would have to reduce recidivism by less than two percent to offset the additional cost of jail- based programming. Estimate 70% of the benefit will accrue to the public, from reduced victimizations, and 30% of the benefit will accrue to the criminal justice system. However, for CJ systems to recoup gains, they must plan for benefits.

3. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Study Design Our goal is to estimate the economic impact of providing jail- based reentry services to jail inmates. Standard cost-benefit analysis to determine: (a) the likely effects of providing reentry programming to jail inmates (b) the conditions under which reentry programming is most cost-beneficial

4. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Study Design Study consists of the following steps: 1)Estimate the costs of providing reentry services (CRS) 2)Estimate costs of new crime from expected offending: –Develop estimates of the costs of processing offenders in the criminal justice system (CJS) –Develop estimates of the costs of new crimes to victims (CV) Use 1 and 2 to estimate the amount of expected crime that would have to be prevented in order to make investment in jail-based reentry programming cost-neutral

5. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Study Design Breakeven Recidivism Rate (r) = CRS/ (CV+CJS) where: Thought experiment for ‘Capital City’ Invests $200,000 in new reentry services Costs of expected crime are $1,000,000 to crime victims Costs of expected crime are $1,000,000 to CJS r= $200,000/ ($1M+$1M) or 10% So, Capital City would have to see a recidivism reduction of 10% to break even.

6. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What are the costs of reentry programming? First, estimate the costs of providing reentry services (CRS) The costs of providing reentry services include: Life skills counseling Substance abuse counseling Employment and education services Healthcare Other services

7. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Expected costs of reentry services The cost of providing reentry services varies by jurisdiction due to differences in length of stay, service costs

8. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What are the expected costs of new crimes? The benefits of providing reentry services include: Averted costs to victims (CV) –Lost wages –Medical care –Pain and suffering Averted costs to the criminal justice system (CJS) –Investigation –Arrest and Prosecution –Incarceration

9. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What are the expected costs of new crimes? Steps to calculating expected costs: 1)Estimate expected costs to criminal justice system: processing; incarceration. 2)Estimate costs to victims; 3)Estimate distribution of new crimes; 4)Sum it up!

10. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What are the costs of processing new offenders in the CJS? Cohen, Miller & Rossman (1994) estimate the cost of arrest and processing offenders for a variety of offense categories in Miami-Dade County:

11. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What are the costs of processing new offenders in the CJS? Allen County, IN (2004) estimates costs of arrest and processing offenders in their county. Combined with Miami data yields:

12. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What are the costs of new crimes for victims? Based on estimates from McCollister (2004) the average cost to victims for each offense type are: Violent offense: $145,332 Property offense: $3,144 Drug offense: $8,595 Public order offense (includes DUI): $13,179

13. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What are the total costs of new crimes? The total cost of a recidivism offense to society is summarized by the following chart:

14. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. What kinds of new crimes do we ‘expect’ released inmates to commit? Aos (2001) provides a portfolio of “expected” recidivism offenses for a given instant offense type:

15. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Crime varies by jurisdiction deals. Construct four plausible scenarios. Assessing Reentry: Four Hypothetical Jurisdictions

16. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Breakeven Recidivism Rates

17. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. How much of the benefit accrues to government agencies? Approximately 70% of the benefits of reentry services accrue to crime victims But modest reductions in recidivism from reentry services remain cost-effective for government agencies.

18. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Will jails be able to demonstrate gains to policymakers? Tangible gains to jails can not be estimated. Since 1990, crime has declined almost 20%. At the same time, jail capacity has increased every year and total capacity has doubled. So if declining crimes leads to increases in jail inmates, how can any savings occur? Solution Resources will never remain on the table, they must be taken off the table before they are spent.

19. URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Can the system be incentivized to yield tangible gains? Inmates already have their behavior incentivized. At the CJS level, must adopt policies that determine who is responsible for certain behaviors. Individuals in the system must have incentives to engage in pro-reentry activities. Agencies in the system must ‘own’ inmate behaviors pre- and post-release and be accountable.