Ex-Offender Jobs Program Cuts Recidivism to Under 10%, UIC Finds

Fewer than 10 percent of graduates of a Chicago jobs program for formerly incarcerated people return to prison within three years, a new University of Illinois Chicago report finds — compared with 43 percent of all people released from prison in Illinois who commit new offenses in that window.

The Great Cities Institute at UIC prepared the report on behalf of the North Lawndale Employment Network, released last week. It measures the social and economic cost of recidivism in North Lawndale and concludes that employment-focused programming keeps people out of the criminal justice system while saving public money.

How large is the baseline problem?

The numbers are stark. More than 28,000 North Lawndale residents reoffended between 2005 and 2024, according to the report. Housing one inmate in Illinois costs roughly $45,000 per year, which compounds to about $1.3 billion over two decades spent jailing residents who had already been imprisoned before.

The state has spent more than $1 billion over the last 20 years on this cycle of re-incarceration, the report states. Recidivism — the likelihood that a person released from incarceration reoffends — ranks among the most persistent challenges in the neighborhood, where poverty and a weak local economy drive high incarceration rates, said Brenda Palms, CEO of the North Lawndale Employment Network.

Barriers after release compound the problem: limited employment opportunities, housing discrimination and weakened community ties all impede reintegration and raise reoffending risk.

What do the employment outcomes show?

More than 70 percent of graduates of the network's programs find jobs within six months, against a national average of 45 percent. Of those employed, 92 percent remain employed after six months, versus 70 percent nationally.

The network, founded in 1999, offers job skills training, financial education and entrepreneurship coaching, plus wraparound services such as mental health and medical care. Palms said workforce development has moved beyond "giving people a resume."

Its best-known venture, Sweet Beginnings, trains participants in beekeeping and honey production, making lip balms, lotions, sugar scrubs and body balms. In 2011 it partnered with O'Hare Airport — the first American airport with beehives — and its honey now supplies 10 O'Hare Starbucks locations. Since that partnership began, Sweet Beginnings has enrolled 1,800 participants and produced thousands of pounds of honey.

For every 10 people enrolled in an anti-recidivism program, Illinois taxpayers save $405,000, the report found. Each dollar invested returns $5.60 in social and economic value, according to Palms and the report.

State money is "better spent on programs that have demonstrated effectiveness," said Teresa Córdova, director of UIC's Great Cities Institute. The report, she said, "reaffirms the notion that we can spend our money more effectively in a way that benefits the entire public good."

Rashawn Ray, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, wrote in the report's foreword that its findings offer "proof that cycles of incarceration are not inevitable" and that "employment can be a powerful lever for community transformation."

What comes next?

The report recommends that local and state officials expand reentry services and hubs across Chicago, strengthen Fair Chance Hiring policies and provide tax credits to employers who hire formerly incarcerated people. Palms argues that redirecting even a quarter of the billion dollars now spent on re-incarceration could fund infrastructure, businesses and schools. The network has set a goal of cutting neighborhood unemployment by 10 percent by 2030 — a benchmark against which its next report will be measured.