Written by Allyson Walker

Image by Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

Roughly two-thirds of the nearly 700,000 people released from U.S. prisons each year will be rearrested and many will be back behind bars within just three years of their release.

A Growing Problem

This sure isn’t helping to reduce the incarceration rate in the United States, which has been the highest in the world for over a decade. In fact, while the U.S. represents only about 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of the world’s prisoners. With a cost of $24,000 per inmate per year and $5.1 billion in new prison construction, criminal correction spending is the second-fastest growing budgetary item after Medicaid.

More...