Our national experiment with mass incarceration has failed to make us safer and protect communities. More than 95 percent of people in our prisons will return home, yet 55 percent will end up back behind bars within five years. There is widespread consensus that we should end mass incarceration and transform the way we treat people who are incarcerated. The Reimagining Prison Project aims to produce such a plan—it envisions a smaller correctional system that places human dignity at its philosophical and operational core and also promotes public safety, successful reentry, and transparency. The Project is designed to shift the goal and culture of incarceration from retribution to rehabilitation, thus producing stronger communities, and, overall, a safer U.S.

Project Objectives

  • Focus: Reducing solitary, preventing assault, expanding education, examining international models.

  • Goal: Shifting culture from retribution to rehabilitation.

  • Philosophy: Prisons should have human dignity at their philosophical and operational core.

Key Fact & Resource

95% of people in prison will eventually be released.