Attorney general Loretta Lynch announced yesterday a $53 million grant that will be used to reduce the nation’s recidivism rate.
Lynch, who was speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum, said that the grants would be going to organizations and nonprofits that run re-entry programs for former prisoners to decrease the likelihood that they would be convicted again.
“There are many barriers that we have seen in the way of people coming out of our prisons to becoming productive citizens again,” Lynch said.
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Statistics from the National Reentry Resource Center shows that within one year of being released, 45.9 percent of Black people will return to prison (that number is 39 percent among White people and 46.3 percent among Latinos), and within five years, that number rises to a staggering 80.8 percent (73.1 percent among White inmates and 75.3 percent of Latinos).
Though the details of the programs haven’t been finalized, Lynch said that they will focus on job training workshops, scholarships and rehabilitation facilities.
“There comes a time when we have to make a decision as to how we are going to reintegrate those individuals back into our society in a way that benefits them, as well as keeps our communities safe,” Lynch said.