Can more holistic re-entry support improve outcomes after prison?

60,000 individuals are released from state and federal prison every year, and 68% of individuals are rearrested within three years of being released. Integrative and holistic support models may address hurdles to successful reentry.

In March 2022, the California legislature earmarked budget dollars to fund a reentry pilot program called CROP (Creating Restorative Opportunities and Programs) that aims to provide an integrated and holistic approach to re-entry. CROP’s Ready for Life (RFL) program, which was designed by leaders who have been directly impacted by incarceration, aims to reduce recidivism and increase employment for people returning home from state prison.

As part of this program, CROP will provide workforce training and job development services to roughly 360 people in both the Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles regions. Participants in the program will be recruited directly from prison, as well as from the community, and will be accepted through a rigorous application system. As part of their participation in RFL, fellows will receive housing, a monthly stipend, financial literacy support, and workforce training and job development services for technology and knowledge-based jobs. 

In collaboration with CROP, the Possibility Lab is co-designing a data collection strategy that will allow us to carry out rigorous program evaluation. Together, we hope to uncover scalable practices, state investment strategies, and/or new models of reentry programming that have the potential to transition the state–and ultimately the country–away from a corrections-led reentry approach into a model that provides good jobs with family-sustaining wages to people who are formerly incarcerated.

This project was made possible with funding from the State of California