This policy brief from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors discusses the economic costs of crime and the effectiveness of programs to reduce recidivism. The report reviews the evidence on the underlying factors that determine the value of such prison programs and provides estimates on their rates of return, focusing on programs delivered inside correctional facilities addressing three main areas: mental health, substance abuse, and education. Findings include that certain individual programs can reduce crime as well as reduce spending by lowering long-run incarceration costs, and that there is great variation in the effectiveness across programs so that reallocation of budgets from poorly to well performing programs may both lower spending and improve results.
Source: JusticeCenter