The only folks that want to discuss recidivism are folks who don't benefit from the prison system (i.e. prisoners and their advocates). If prisons were publicl

The only folks that want to discuss recidivism are folks who don't benefit from the prison system (i.e. prisoners and their advocates). If prisons were publicly measured and criticized based on on recidivism then wardens, parole boards, state and federal elected officials, etc, would all be at risk of being held accountable for the poor performance of prisons. The public at large have really been fooled by this persistent avoidance of measuring prison success. Even a modest 10% reduction of recidivism (from 70% to 63%) would mean 36,000 fewer crimes and victims of crimes (about 10,000 prisoners are released weekly according to the DOJ). To me that's the shocking part... improving recidivism would actually _prevent_ crime and reduce the number of victims of crime. Beyond that, there's the financial savings from reduced police man hours, courts, lawyers, and of course the actual costs of housing inmates. Canada has a recidivism rate of 35% men/20% women, Sweden's is about 40%, Norway's is an astonishing 20%. If these countries can manage it surely the US can too.