This brief from the National Reentry Resource Center provides guidance for

The evidence is clear that prisoners tend to be undereducated and underemployed. What if US prison systems placed a greater emphasis on improving educational and employment outcomes for prisoners? Would it improve other outcomes such as recidivism or prison misconduct? If so, to what extent? And, if US prison systems invested in more education and employment programming, would the benefits outweigh the costs?
This report addresses these questions by providing an overview of the available evidence on the effectiveness of education and employment programming.

In 2019, the CSG Justice Center engaged corrections and community supervisi

In the following discussion, we describe the logical and practical problems that arise when recidivism is used as the principal outcome measure for community corrections agencies. We recognize that recidivism will always be a feature of justice policy and practice. Recidivism offers a simple and familiar outcome measure for judging the effectiveness of justice interventions. Pointing out the logical f laws of recidivism will not diminish its salience for audiences disinclined to question its utility.

Algorithms for predicting recidivism are commonly used to assess a criminal defendant’s likelihood of committing a
crime. These predictions are used in pretrial, parole, and sentencing decisions. Proponents of these systems argue that
big data and advanced machine learningmake these analysesmore accurate and less biased than humans. We show,
however, that the widely used commercial risk assessment software COMPAS is nomore accurate or fair than predictions
made by people with little or no criminal justice expertise. In addition, despite COMPAS’s collection of 137

California has undertaken numerous corrections reforms in the past decade— including public safety realignment in 2011 and Proposition 47 in 2014—in hopes of reducing the prison population, maintaining public safety, and improving persistently high recidivism rates. These reforms lowered incarceration levels, and in their aftermath, crime rates have fluctuated. Recidivism rates provide another important window into public safety and the effectiveness of correctional interventions under these policy changes.

GAO selected six states that varied in their adult incarceration rates and provided geographic diversity. At BOP and the six states’ departments of corrections, GAO analyzed criminal offense and incarceration and mental health care cost data and interviewed officials about strategies for reducing recidivism for inmates with serious mental illness. The results from these six states are not generalizable, but provide insights. GAO also reviewed studies that analyzed the relationship between various programs and recidivism among offenders with mental illness.