Arkansas Launches Justice Reinvestment Initiative to Better Understand and Address Recidivism Drivers and Reentry Barriers

Against a background of alarmingly high recidivism and violent crime rates, in 2023, the Arkansas Legislature passed the Protect Arkansas Act. Among other changes, the act created the Legislative Recidivism Reduction Task Force to engage in a data-driven analysis of Arkansas’s criminal justice system with the goal of developing evidence-based recommendations to improve outcomes for individuals on supervision and reentering the community. This effort is part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Through analyzing data provided by the state, conducting a series of qualitative analyses, and holding discussions with practitioners and individuals with lived experience in the justice system, the project aims to assist state leaders in answering some of the following questions:

1. Why do people return to prison, and how have those factors changed, or not, over the past decade?
   • Forty-six percent of people released from Department of Corrections (DOC) facilities in Arkansas in 2017 returned to the DOC within the next 3 years.
   • Additionally, in the initial 3-year span following release, reincarceration occurs for 37 percent of individuals released from the Division of Community Correction and for 48 percent of those released from the Division of Correction, both of which are under the DOC.
2. What are the costs (fiscal, human, systemic) when someone cycles in and out of the criminal justice system?
   • In April 2023, Arkansas DOC facilities were operating at over 106 percent of capacity, and 2,190 people were housed in county jails due to lack of prison bed space.
   • Arkansas’s prison population is projected to increase by nearly 3,500 people in the next 9 years, raising facility operating costs by $439 million by 2032.
3. What types of behaviors or criminal activities are driving recidivism in Arkansas?
   • In 2021, 62 percent of all prison admissions in Arkansas were due to revocations from supervision, and 27 percent of all admissions were for technical violations, such as a positive drug test or failure to pay fines and fees.
   • In 2021, over 7,700 people were revoked from either probation or parole, and 87 percent of those revocations resulted in an admission to a DOC facility.
   • Currently available information and analysis do not explain what types of new offenses or technical violations are driving revocations.

Arkansas’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which was jointly initiated by leaders from the state’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches, will include an extensive review of the state’s criminal justice system by the CSG Justice Center to answer the questions above. The CSG Justice Center will share its findings and develop policy recommendations with guidance from the Legislative Recidivism Reduction Task Force for the 2025 legislative session.