By Pilar Steward, PBI Intern
The cycle of release and return to prison is both costly to governments and negatively impacts individuals, families, and communities. Community stakeholders and governments can help improve reentry outcomes and reduce recidivism rates by investing in reentry programming. Pro bono partners can provide holistic services through civil legal aid to reduce barriers that hinder reintegration.
A Look into Reentry Programming
The Minnesota Collaborative Justice Project (MNCJP), an initiative of Pro Bono Institute (PBI), works to improve reentry outcomes through reentry planning, access to services, and policy and advocacy. The MNCJP Steering Committee includes representatives of government agencies, law firms, corporations, public interest legal organizations, reentry specialists, and community organizations.
PBI conducted an interview with MNCJP Steering Committee member and reentry specialist Rocky DeYoung, who has worked in Minnesota state and federal prison systems to improve reentry outcomes for over 36 years, and helped coordinate Minnesota’s reentry court. Now at Reentry Training Solutions, Rocky serves as Director of Training and Development, where he leads programs focused on recovery and reentry.
When asked about barriers to successful reentry, Rocky points to both the difficulties individuals face in shifting deep-rooted patterns of thinking, and the “unrealistic expectation by the system and society to expect change to occur.” He references the eight criminogenic risk factors developed by psychologists James Bonta and Donald Andrews, which are directly linked to criminal behavior and serve as the foundation for most correctional intervention practices.
Rocky notes that when working with incarcerated individuals whose risk factors include antisocial personalities, cognitions, and associates, resistance to change is not only common, it’s expected:
“If you’ve had decades of dysfunctional living and thinking, and then you’re placed in a facility for another decade or so, full of people who also have dysfunctional thinking and living, and then you’re released and you’re expected to now not be so dysfunctional… it’s unrealistic.”
One strategy to reduce that dysfunction and improve reentry outcomes is to create reentry programming inside prisons. Rocky states that having trained professionals from the private sector help coordinate programming before inmates are released, by connecting them with services on the outside, would likely dramatically reduce the numbers of reincarceration – noting that a follow-up component is crucial.
Reentry programming helps address not only the criminogenic risk factors but also the systemic barriers to reentry that make it increasingly difficult to reintegrate. A study on formerly incarcerated persons found that approximately 49% earn less than $500 during their first year on the outside, and only 20% will earn more than $15,000 – leaving the near majority of previously incarcerated individuals barely above the US poverty guidelines for a one-person household.
Obstacles to employment are closely linked to other challenges, as formerly incarcerated individuals experience homelessness at rates nearly ten times higher than the general population, and one in three report difficulty accessing transportation for work. These struggles extend to education, healthcare, and other fundamental needs that are integral parts of functioning in society yet are entrenched in bureaucratic barriers. Without addressing these barriers, the likelihood of recidivism remains high. Reentry programming and civil legal aid can help individuals to overcome these barriers, as discussed further below.
Trends in Recidivism
There is bipartisan support for reducing recidivism. The Second Chance Act, first passed in 2008 with strong bipartisan support, provided federal grants to states, counties, and nonprofit organizations to develop programs that help formerly incarcerated individuals reintegrate into the community. The more than 1,300 grants provided since 2008 have helped counties provide reentry services such as employment assistance, substance abuse and mental health treatment, housing, and family-center programming.
Data suggests that the Second Chance Act is correlated with a decline in recidivism. The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center – a national nonprofit that develops strategies to increase public safety and is governed by a board of officials from corrections, public defense, mental health, and substance abuse agencies – published a 2024 report examining state level recidivism trends. They evaluate the “percentage of individuals released from state prison in a specific year who were reincarcerated in state prison within the next three years,” or in other words, three-year recidivism rates. They define recidivism as rearrest, reconviction, reincarceration, and revocation from community supervision.
The CSG Justice Center found that in 2008, 35% of people released from state prison were reincarcerated within three years, whereas only 27% of those released in 2019 were reincarcerated within three years, after the Second Chance Act had been in effect for over a decade. Due to a lack of recent, comprehensive, national data evaluating a change in recidivism rates, the CSG compiled state-by-state data to provide an overall picture of the change in national recidivism rates.
The First Step Act (FSA), signed into law in 2018, aims to improve reentry outcomes for those released from federal prisons. It requires the Attorney General to develop a “risk and needs assessment system” to evaluate the recidivism risk and criminogenic needs of all federal prisoners. They accordingly place prisoners in recidivism-reducing programs and activities to address their needs. Expanding on the Second Chance Act, the law directs the Bureau of Prisons to partner with nonprofits, including faith and community-based organizations, to provide recidivism reduction programs. When passed, it authorized $75 million per fiscal year from FY2019 to FY2023 for the DOJ to establish and implement the system.
Analyses of the FSA by the DOJ and the Council on Criminal Justice found that the recidivism rate for people released from federal prison under the FSA from 2019 to the end of 2023 was 9.7%. In contrast, the recidivism rate of similarly situated people who were released prior to the FSA was 21.5%. This suggests that the FSA programming is correlated with a decline in recidivism. (The study does however conclude that its findings should not be interpreted as an impact assessment of the FSA, and the analysis does not imply that this reduction was caused by the FSA alone.)
In 2018, the Second Chance Act was reauthorized as part of the broader First Step Act, which funded reentry programs for another four fiscal years. On May 21, 2025 the Second Chance Reauthorization Act was introduced by both parties in the House and Senate. If passed, it would reauthorize key grants for reentry support, expand access to transitional housing, and enhance addiction treatment services, including peer support, case management, and overdose prevention. There are no new updates on its passage as of [July 28, 2025].
The Cost of Recidivism
While the core of recidivism is the reinvolvement of individuals within the prison system, it affects far more than just those returning to prison. It is within the interest of a community and its government to work at reducing recidivism rates, as crime victimization, overburdened prisons, and government spending decrease as a result.
The Council of State Governments estimates that states across the U.S. will collectively spend $8 billion to reincarcerate people who were released from state prisons in 2022. To reduce these government costs, community stakeholders must continue to provide coordinated reentry programming and services to prisons and their incarcerated populations.
The Importance of Civil Legal Aid
There are many potential civil legal barriers that returning individuals face. In order for newly released individuals to set up a bank account, rent an apartment, or apply for a job, they need proper identification, such as birth certificates and social security cards. To obtain and maintain employment, they need a driver’s license. A driver’s license is also essential to maintaining relationships with families and friends in communities that do not have public transportation available. The individual may have family law matters to tend to such as custody battles, divorce, and child support, allowing them to reestablish parent-child relationships and take responsibility for caregiving. If the individual has debts, they may need to engage in debt repayment negotiations to make those repayments manageable. All of these barriers have the potential to undermine a successful reentry, and they’re not easily dealt with alone.
Civil legal aid can help reduce the barriers that vulnerable populations face as they reenter the community after incarceration. In addressing those civil legal problems, legal aid and pro bono lawyers can help a former inmate regain their independence and reenter the community.
Reentry specialist Rocky DeYoung explained how important it is for recently released individuals to receive reentry support:
“You get institutionalized in that culture where you have to survive, and the minute you leave to step outside, now there’s a whole new set of rules that requires you to readjust once again. You need some kind of community to work with.”
Civil legal aid that supports securing identification, custody and child support, driver’s license reinstatement, and debt repayment negotiations is essential for helping former inmates reintegrate into society.
Rocky emphasizes that it’s equally important to discuss these barriers with individuals before their release, to help prepare them for the realities of reentry. Legal aid and pro bono lawyers contribute to the necessary community that Rocky describes, and they are crucial to removing the structural barriers of reentry.
Opportunities for Pro Bono Support
There are many opportunities for pro bono volunteers to provide support. These opportunities typically fall into two categories: advocacy, and direct services. For example, lawyers at firms and companies can help advocate for legislation similar to Minnesota’s Reintegration Drivers License. Advocates can work with the Fines and Fees Justice Center to end driver’s license suspensions for failure to appear and failure to pay in Minnesota.
For direct legal services, the American Bar Association (ABA) maintains a list of Legal Aid Reentry Projects for Pro Bono Volunteers. The ABA identifies both Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and non-LSC funded legal aid programs in the U.S. that recently reported offering reentry-related legal services. The Justice and Accountability Center of Louisiana offers reentry program volunteer opportunities to litigate on behalf of individuals in the Orleans and Jefferson Parish Re-Entry Courts to remove or mitigate collateral consequences to convictions.
PBI’s Minnesota Collaborative Justice Project has opportunities for volunteers to do intake, full representation, and policy and advocacy. For more information, please reach out to pbi@probonoinst.org.