RECIDIVISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS*

Abstract

America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of theprison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.President George W. BushState of the Union Address, 2004In March 2008, the PEW Center on the States published a report onU.S. incarceration trends showing that 2.3 million people—1% of Ameri-can adults—are now in prison or jail (PEW Charitable Trusts, 2008).Although the PEW report received widespread publicity, its contentscome as little surprise to criminologists. What may be of some surprise,however, is the report’s overall optimistic tone. Forget “nothing works.”Those days are over. The budget-breaking costs of incarceration are forc-ing policy makers to try “new approaches that save money but still ensurethat the public is protected and that offenders are held accountable”(PEW Charitable Trusts, 2008:4). This is good news.On the heels of the PEW report, Congress finally passed the SecondChance Act, four years after the President first proposed it, authorizing upto $362 million for prisoner reentry programs to provide job training,placement, transitional housing, and other services to released prisoners(