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1 1 (November 2017)

handle is hein.amenin/aeiaaqe0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Key Points * Over the past decade, there has been growing bipartisan consensus on the need for prison reform. US prison systems are seen as ineffective, or broken, due to the relatively high recidivism rates observed among released prisoners. * Drawing on the lessons learned from the what works literature, this paper lays out a three-pronged plan for evidence-based reform to US prison systems: (1) increase the delivery of correctional programming, (2) reduce the size of prison populations, and (3) increase the use of risk assessment instruments. * Punitive strategies have been not only largely ineffective in reducing recidivism but also wasteful and costly. We must move toward a more efficient and cost-effective system that does more with less or, more precisely, more with the same amount. Over the past decade, there has been growing consensus on the need for prison reform. Observers from both sides of the political divide have increasingly concluded that imprisonment in the US has been overused, costly, and ultimately, ineffective. In the wake of the Great Recession, recent reform efforts have focused on limiting the use and costs of prison. Since 2008, the nation's imprisonment rate has dropped by more than io percent., US prison systems have been seen as ineffective, or broken, due to the relatively high recidivism rates observed among released prisoners. Indeed, a Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that nearly 8o percent of the roughly 70,000 inmates released from prisons in 30 states in 2oo5 had been rearrested within five years.2 To date, however, little of the public debate around prison reform has zeroed in on developing strategies for improving prisons' effectiveness. Is it possible to make prisons more effective, especially in reducing recidivism, without creating additional challenges such as increased costs? There is no evidence that recent efforts to downsize state and federal prison populations have successfully lowered recidivism, and there is good reason to question whether these reforms will ever yield less recidivism. If we are going to succeed in reducing the amount of reoffending in America, we need to find ways to change the status quo in current incarceration policy and practice. The best way to make progress in reducing recidivism is through delivering programming that has been shown to effectively reduce reoffending. Such programming must increase to bring down the high recidivism rates long observed among US prisoners. Drawing on the lessons learned from what is known as the what works literature, my paper Rethinking Prison: A Strategy for Evidence-Based Refom lays out a three-pronged plan for evidence-based AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE