The Math Nobody Wants to Do: Recidivism, Employment, and What Actually Keeps People Out of Prison
The national recidivism rate is 67% within three years of release.
Two out of three people who leave prison end up back inside within 36 months. We cite that number like it’s a verdict — like it proves something fundamental about people who’ve been incarcerated. Like it’s inevitable.
It’s not. And the data is very clear about why.
The Number Nobody Quotes Next to the 67%
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce published research that should be required reading for every employer in America. It cites the Safer Foundation’s three-year recidivism study, and the finding is this:
Formerly incarcerated people who cannot maintain employment recidivate at a rate of 52% over three years.
Their peers who hold a job for just one year post-release? 16%.
Same population. Same criminal history. Same system that released them. The only variable is whether someone hired them and they stayed employed for twelve months.
That’s not a rounding error. That’s a 36-point gap. That’s the difference between a system that works and one that doesn’t — and the deciding factor is a job.
There’s more. Statewide recidivism rates range from 31% to 71%, but the recidivism rate for formerly incarcerated people who found employment shortly after release is less than 9%. Less than nine percent. The number everyone cites as proof that nothing works drops below 9% when employment enters the picture early.
I’ve been in five different prisons teaching business fundamentals — pricing, P&Ls, brand building. I’ve watched the moment people realize their skills have market value. I’ve seen what happens when someone who’s been told they’re worthless starts doing work that the world is willing to pay for.
The data matches what I’ve seen in those rooms. Employment isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the variable.
Then Add Education to the Equation
If employment alone cuts recidivism from 67% to 16%, what happens when you add education?
The RAND Corporation’s meta-analysis — the most comprehensive review of its kind — tracked the relationship between education level and recidivism. The average 70–80% recidivism rate drops to 50% when a person finishes some high school while incarcerated. It falls to 13.7% for an associate degree. It drops to 5.6% for a bachelor’s degree. And for those who earn a master’s degree: it reaches 0%.
Zero.
I’ll let that sit for a second.
The system that produces a 67% recidivism rate produces a 0% recidivism rate for people who earn a graduate degree. Same people. Same record. Different outcome — because something changed about what they had access to and what they believed was possible for themselves.
The ladder looks like this:
- No intervention, no employment: 67%+ recidivism
- Some high school completed: ~55%
- Vocational training: ~30%
- Holds a job for one year post-release: 16%
- Associate degree: 13.7%
- Bachelor’s degree: 5.6%
- Master’s degree: 0%
Every rung down that ladder represents a person who doesn’t go back to prison. A family that stays together. A community that doesn’t absorb the cost — financial and human — of another incarceration cycle.
What This Actually Means
I’m not a policy person. I don’t lobby for prison reform bills or write position papers. I run a screen printing and embroidery shop in Santa Ana that hires people rebuilding their lives.
But I look at these numbers and I see something that should make every business owner uncomfortable: we are the variable.
Not the government. Not the courts. Not the parole system. Us. The employers who decide whether someone with a record gets an interview. The business owners who choose to hire based on potential rather than paperwork. The companies that look at the person in front of them instead of the checkbox they checked on a form seven years ago.
Over 60% of formerly incarcerated individuals will be arrested again within three years, and over 70% within five years — without employment or alternative interventions. The intervention isn’t complicated. It’s a paycheck. It’s showing up to a place that expects something from you and pays you for delivering it.
That’s what Breaking Free Industries does. Not because it’s charitable — because it works. The people we hire show up, train hard, and produce work that our clients trust with their brand. The mission only holds if the product is excellent, and the product is excellent because the people making it have something real to build toward.
The Business Case, If You Need One
If the moral argument doesn’t move you, try the business argument.
Formerly incarcerated individuals are 24% less likely to return to prison if they acquired new skills and held a job during incarceration. Second chance employees consistently show higher retention rates than standard hires — because getting the job was harder and keeping it matters more.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — not exactly a progressive advocacy group — has published multiple pieces on second chance hiring as a workforce strategy. Not a charity strategy. A workforce strategy. There are 70 million Americans with a criminal record. That’s one in three working-age adults. If your hiring policy excludes that population by default, you’ve eliminated a third of the available workforce before the first interview.
At some point, that’s not a values decision. It’s just bad math.
What the Numbers Don’t Capture
The studies are real. The percentages are well-sourced. But they don’t capture what I’ve seen in those five prisons, or what happens in our shop when someone finishes their first full production run and realizes they built something.
There’s a moment — and if you’ve worked with this population you know exactly what I’m talking about — where a person stops performing rehabilitation and starts actually rebuilding. It’s not dramatic. It looks like someone staying twenty minutes late to get a registration right. It looks like asking questions instead of guessing. It looks like pride, which is a thing people lose in the system and have to find their way back to.
That’s what a job does. That’s what a degree does. That’s what any structure does that says: you are capable of something, and we’re going to hold you to it.
67% is not a fact about people. It’s a fact about what we offer them when we let them out.
Change what we offer. Watch the number change.
Breaking Free Industries is an Orange County custom screen printing and embroidery shop built on a second-chance employment mission. Every order supports that work. If this resonated, start a project with us — or share this with someone who hires.
Sources
- Safer Foundation Three-Year Recidivism Study, 2008 — cited via U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- RAND Corporation meta-analysis on correctional education and recidivism — cited via Education Commission of the States
- Prison2EC.org employment and recidivism fact compilation — prison2ec.org
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce: The Workforce Impact of Second Chance Hiring — uschamber.com