Washington, DC - The United States contains 5% of the world’s population, yet houses 25% of the world’s prisoners, according to the American Psychological Association. This means we incarcerate approximately 2.3 million people or 1 in every 100 adults.

The analysts at PrisonEd Foundation are passionate about giving inmates a second chance at a successful life, so we asked the question: what states are helping recently released inmates reintegrate themselves back into society? With this question in mind, we crunched the numbers and found that:

Arizona is ranked #30 out of the 45 states we looked at for The 10 Best and Worst States for Recently Released Inmates!

See the full report here.

Interesting Findings

  • Virginia has the lowest re-incarceration rates with only 2,588 of the 11,576 felons released in 2013 being reincarcerated within 3 years.
  • Alabama has the most reentry programs at 19 and is ranked 4th overall. California, the state with the second-largest number of programs, has 13. 
  • The percent of adults who are current or ex-felons ranges from 2.5% in West Virginia to 13.5% in Florida.