According to some sources, more than a third of people released from U.S. prisons end up back behind bars within three years.
That cycle doesn’t happen by chance.
Recidivism is caused by a mix of challenges, like education gaps, limited job opportunities, mental health struggles, and unstable housing.
No single workforce program can solve this alone, and it’s not a burden that workforce teams should carry by themselves. But programs that help justice-involved individuals build skills, regain confidence, and connect to stable employment can help and make a difference between returning to prison and successfully rebuilding a life.
By the time you read this article, you’ll know how to shape your workforce programs to have an impact, contributing to positive change for those returning from incarceration.
Understanding Recidivism as a Systemic Issue: What Actually Works in Preventing It?
Recidivism isn’t just about personal choices — it’s about the system people return to. Limited access to education, untreated trauma, unstable housing or income, and policies that make reentry unnecessarily difficult all play a role.
Research points to an integrated approach as the most effective way forward: combining education, vocational training, and therapy to address the root causes of reoffending and prevent it from happening.
Educational programming
Education is one of the strongest predictors of a successful reentry, and not just because it helps people get jobs.
When individuals continue learning while incarcerated, it changes how they think about themselves and their future. It gives them a sense of progress and identity beyond their sentence, which can be the spark that keeps them moving forward once they’re released.
Research across multiple states backs this up: people who earn degrees or certifications in prison are dramatically less likely to reoffend compared to those who don’t. One analysis out of South Carolina found that participants who completed college-level programs had recidivism rates in the single digits (33% drop to 4%).
Bottom line: When education is part of the equation, people are more likely to walk out with skills, purpose, and a plan.
Vocational training
If education builds confidence, vocational training builds proof.
Teaching people a trade or hands-on skill they can take into the workforce gives them something tangible, a credential that says, “I can do this job.”
Programs across the U.S. have shown how powerful this can be.
At Huttonsville Correctional Center in West Virginia, data from the 1990s through 2000 showed that individuals who completed a vocational program had a recidivism rate of just under 9%, compared to 26% among those who didn’t. In another example, a community initiative in Alameda County, California, trained formerly incarcerated women to become certified doulas. None of the participants returned to prison after completing the program.
So when people leave incarceration with skills that translate into real jobs, they’re far less likely to end up back inside.
How workforce programs can help: As a workforce specialist, you can amplify these results by helping participants practice talking about their training and certifications in interviews, link their skills to employer needs, and build the confidence to walk into a job interview ready (more on this later).
You can also make a huge impact by aligning vocational pathways with your local labor market, like connecting participants to industries that are actually hiring and employers who value second-chance talent. Try to build genuine relationships with those employers — it’s what helps participants turn their training into real job opportunities instead of just another line on a program report.
Therapy
Therapy plays a major role in helping people address the root causes of their behavior and rebuild their lives after incarceration. In one Israeli prison, participants who went through a structured program combining cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, and group therapy were 61% less likely to reoffend within a year compared to those who didn’t receive treatment.
Similarly, a long-term study in New York found that people who completed a 60–90 day therapy-based drug treatment program were rearrested at a much lower rate — 43.7% vs. 73.8% in the control group.
While therapy alone isn’t a silver bullet, programs that integrate it with education, skills training, and employment support show some of the most promising results in reducing recidivism.
For more information on the scientific research behind these numbers, take a look at these slides.
How to Reduce Recidivism Through Your Program
In the sections below, we’ll dive into practical ways you can strengthen your program to better support reentry.
We’ve seen firsthand the impact these approaches can have through our partnership with Teknimedia and the Adult Reentry course developed by our founder, Pamela Skillings, who has spent more than 15 years helping people rebuild their careers after major life transitions.
Build interview confidence through structured practice
Interviews can trigger a lot of anxiety, especially for participants who aren’t sure if, when, or how to bring up their criminal record.
The key to building their confidence is in structure and repetition.
You could help them by creating a clear interview practice routine that starts with basic questions (“Tell me about yourself,” “What are your strengths?”), and then gradually introduce tougher ones around employment gaps or background checks.
Encourage participants to reflect on what went well and what felt awkward after each round.
This will be easy to scale with Big Interview.
Participants can complete the Adult Reentry playbook to learn how to answer different questions, tackle the topic of incarceration, and leave a good impression. Then, they can complete self-paced mock interviews, review automated feedback, and practice as many times as needed, freeing you from having to run one-on-one mock sessions every week.
That way, you can focus your one-on-one time on advanced coaching and meaningful challenges, while Big Interview handles the repetitive practice and foundational skills, so your personal guidance has a bigger impact.
Teach participants to translate life and work experience into marketable skills
People who have been incarcerated have gaps in traditional employment or experiences that don’t fit neatly on a resume.
It can make it hard to explain their capabilities — and opens the door to bias from employers.
Your goal is to help them identify what they actually can offer and present it clearly, so the focus needs to be on their skills — transferable, gained through education, courses, vocational training, or non-traditional work experiences.
Start by guiding participants to map their experiences, both paid and unpaid, to workplace skills.
If they don’t know how to start, just writing down their work and education experience can be a nice brainstorming session. Then, they can list skills needed for those jobs and accomplishments, like problem-solving, time management, teamwork, customer service…
Encourage them to think about responsibilities in daily life, volunteer work, or training programs — anything that demonstrates a transferable skill. Use guided prompts like:
- “Tell me about a time you solved a problem under pressure.”
- “Describe a situation where you helped someone learn or complete a task.”
- “What responsibilities did you have in school, a program, or your community that required organization or follow-through?”
Once participants identify these skills, have them practice articulating them in concrete, results-oriented examples. Focus on one or two skills at a time, pairing each with a short story or achievement that illustrates it in action. This makes their experience relatable and memorable to employers.
Big Interview’s Answer Builder can help them draft responses to skill-based questions, and Practice Sets and PracticeAI will help them record mock answers and review feedback in a low-pressure environment.
Repeating these exercises builds confidence and helps them refine the way they present their abilities — so when they’re in a real interview, their examples feel natural, compelling, and polished.
Support participants in navigating stigma and sensitive questions
Questions around criminal history are intimidating, and bias on interviewers’ side (conscious or not), can make these moments even harder.
Participants need a strategy that would help them acknowledge their past honestly, while keeping the focus on growth, accountability, and reliability.
You can start by helping them:
- Anticipate when they might get a question about their time in jail.
- Gauge whether or not to bring it up if they’re not asked.
- Build a simple, three-part framework for their answer.
Show them how to build a simple, three-part framework for discussing their past:
- Acknowledge the past briefly and without unnecessary detail. Encourage them to stay factual and avoid overexplaining, for instance, “A few years ago, I made choices that led me down the wrong path. Since then, I’ve taken steps to turn my life around, like completing job training and staying committed to personal growth. Now, I’m ready to bring hard work and dedication to a new opportunity. I’d love to share my references with you.”
- Emphasize growth and accountability. This is where they should highlight the positive steps they’ve taken — completing training, pursuing education, or staying consistent with work or community goals.
- Refocus on the present and future. Guide them to pivot toward what they’ve learned, the skills they bring, and how they’re prepared to contribute now.
(For more tips, you can share this guide with them: How to Find a Job If You Have a Criminal Record: 6 Tips.)
Encourage them to pair this with confident body language and tone — the goal is calm honesty, not defensiveness or oversharing.
Track progress to measure program impact
To keep funding strong and prove the value of your efforts, you need more than success stories — you need data.
It will also help you track participant progress and fine-tune your program along the way to better serve them.
Start by identifying a few key metrics that reflect both skill development and confidence growth. This could include mock interview completion rates, skill mastery scores, and participant self-assessments.
Encourage participants to reflect on their own confidence before and after training — that qualitative data often tells a powerful story when paired with hard numbers.
Big Interview dashboard will help you monitor engagement, completed interviews, and performance over time. You can see which participants are progressing steadily, who might need extra support, and where your program is having the greatest impact.
Together, these insights help you show what’s working and make smart tweaks to keep your results moving in the right direction.
Partner with employers to create second-chance opportunities
Reducing recidivism doesn’t stop at job readiness — it also depends on employers who are willing to open their doors.
One of the most effective ways to expand opportunities is by building partnerships with businesses that value second-chance hiring and showing them the tangible benefits: lower turnover, strong employee loyalty, and even potential tax incentives under the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.
You can start by identifying local employers who already have inclusive hiring practices or who are struggling to fill entry-level roles. Offer to educate them about the practical side of second-chance hiring, share relevant data, and address common misconceptions about hiring individuals with records.
On the participant side, help them prepare for those partnerships by teaching how to meet employer expectations — from punctuality and communication to reliability and teamwork. This ensures both sides are set up for success.
Finally, collect and share success stories from employers who’ve seen great results hiring returning citizens. Real-world examples can help persuade other organizations to get involved and can build momentum for a stronger, fairer local workforce.
Summary of the Main Points
- Reducing recidivism takes teamwork. Real change happens when education, job training, therapy, and workforce support all work together, not in silos.
- Workforce programs play a huge role by helping people get job-ready, build confidence, and develop real skills they can use right away.
- Help people tell their story. Teaching participants how to connect their life and work experience to real job skills makes a big difference, especially when it matches what local employers are actually hiring for.
- Don’t skip the hard conversations. Coaching participants on how to talk about their past with honesty and accountability helps them turn potential red flags into proof of growth.
- Track what’s working. Keeping tabs on practice completion, confidence gains, and skill growth gives you the data to show results — and keep improving.
FAQ
What works in reducing recidivism?
There’s no single magic fix, but research shows that combining education, vocational training, and therapy works best. Each tackles a different piece of the puzzle: education builds confidence and purpose, vocational programs open real job opportunities, and therapy helps address the underlying issues that led to incarceration in the first place. When these are followed by strong post-release support and access to steady work, the chances of reoffending drop dramatically.
Why is reducing recidivism important?
Reducing recidivism isn’t just about keeping people out of prison, it’s about helping them build stable and productive lives. Every person who successfully reintegrates means one less family torn apart, one more community member working and contributing, and a system that spends fewer resources cycling people back through incarceration. It’s better for individuals and for society as a whole.
What is the cost-benefit of reducing recidivism?
Programs that lower recidivism rates pay off in a big way. Fewer re-incarcerations mean lower prison costs, more people in the workforce, and stronger local economies. Every dollar spent on education, training, or reentry support can save several dollars down the line in reduced incarceration and social service costs. It’s one of those rare cases where what’s morally right is also financially smart.
Are rehabilitation programs in prisons effective?
When done well, absolutely. The most effective programs are the ones that combine education, practical job training, and behavioral health support. These help people leave prison with real skills, a sense of purpose, and healthier coping mechanisms. The key is making sure the support continues after release, because that’s when reentry challenges really begin.
How to reduce recidivism through workforce programs?
Workforce programs play a huge role in helping people build new lives. The most effective ones focus on confidence, communication, and real-world readiness. That means helping participants practice interviews, talk about their skills (even nontraditional ones), and address tough questions about their past. Tools like Big Interview can make this process easier by giving participants a safe space to practice, get feedback, and track progress — all while freeing up staff to focus on deeper coaching and support.
