Support for People Re-Entering Communities After Incarceration

Every day in America, there are some two million people behind bars. But even that staggering figure doesn’t begin to capture the pervasive impact of mass incarceration on individual lives and in our communities.

Counting people on community probation and parole, 6.3 million were under correctional supervision at the end of 2019. U.S. jails reported 10.3 million admissions that year, meaning people are continuously cycling in and out of these local lockups. Federal and state prisons, meanwhile, release more than 600,000 individuals annually, and re-arrest rates are the highest in the world.

It’s well known that this disruptive cycle disproportionately removes Black men from society. It is also spatially concentrated, with incarceration and reentry focused in structurally disadvantaged places.  

Incarceration is both a consequence and a driver of household and community poverty. It leads to displacement from homes, lost wages, and incarceration-related debt to government agencies. It separates families. One in 12 American kids has at some point seen a parent locked up. Once released and trying to make their way again in the community, people who’ve experienced incarceration face enormous obstacles to rebuilding their lives, including justice system-related debt and hurdles to obtaining stable housing, employment, education and even drivers licenses. Their risk of homelessness is ten times that of the general population.

LISC Safety & Justice supports and collaborates with a variety of local partners working to meet the critical needs of formerly incarcerated persons and their families and help break the cycle of recidivism. 

These activities include: 

• engaging and providing services for reentering persons as part of cross-sector community-led safety initiatives; 
• supporting the development of supportive housing and other facilities for people post incarceration, in part by offering specialized curricula for developers and models of community engagement designed to earn neighborhood buy-in and overcome NIMBYism;  
• offering services to reentering individuals via LISC’s Financial Opportunity Centers (FOCs) and integrated Bridges to Career Opportunities (Bridges) program, which provide one-on-one financial coaching, help accessing public benefits, and step-by-step training and support to prepare for and land living-wage employment.