Holy shizz, that's a lot. It's as if US laws and prisons aren't there to rehabilitate an individual but to turn him against society for good, making him a returning "customer" so that certain interest groups can keep profiting. But that's just probably my imagination running wild.
The gist of it was that in many (all?) places in the US, a landlord can be sued if they rent to someone who has a criminal record who then went on commit another crime. As a result, few landlords will rent to them. I hang out on real estate forums and have never met anyone who would rent to someone with a criminal record.
Getting a job is a whole other problem.
That's just one example of the challenges they face.
https://www.marketplace.org/2021/02/01/the-afterlife-of-mass...
I can't find it right now, but there's also a TED talk by a former state official (state senator?) who committed a crime and spent a very brief time in prison. It was eye opening to him how he was denied pretty much everything once he got out, and only through his connections was he able to get employment.
Couple that with the fact that the US is the country that imprisons the highest proportion of its own citizens, and it's terrifying.
How does society expect ex-cons to become functioning members again if they're denied housing and employment?
But if you don't hire them, they may be forced to commit other felonies... tragedy of the commons I suppose, just like shopping at Walmart is bad for the community but good for the individual.
It's hard to overcome these effects without legislation, but noone (sane) wants to be in the community that starts it.
> Holy shizz, that's a lot.
As far as I can tell that’s the rearrest rate, and possibly only the rearrest rate for state offenders, which is higher than for federal (it doesn't exactly match any of the sources I've found, but that's what it seems closest to.)
Reconviction (including determination of a parole violation) rates are much lower (somewhere between 50-60% im various sources.
And both are heavily tied to other demographic, offense type, and criminal history factors that I'm going to guess are also very influential in selection for the program, so the the expected recidivism rate for those entering the program—whether measured by rearrest, reconviction, or any other standard—would probably be much lower than the overall criminal population.
> It's as if US laws and prisons aren't there to rehabilitate an individual but to turn him against society for good,
To the extent something like that is a factor, it's almost backwards: US criminal laws are very disproportionately used against people that society has turned against for reasons other than criminality. Now, it's true that the criminal “justice” system isn't rehabilitative, but it's targets not being turned against society further by it wouldn't protect them from being retargeted.