With nine state corrections systems over full capacity and another 11 approaching it, we need to reverse the national trend toward overcrowded facilities in order to protect prisoners’ health.
But simply opening cell doors and releasing thousands of prisoners, as more than 10 states have done, is questionable at best and dangerous at worst. More than 7 in 10 people released from prison are rearrested within five years.
The American Rescue Plan Act provides America’s prisons and jails with $700 million to combat COVID-19. That’s why state lawmakers should reduce incarceration levels by investing ARPA funds in performance-based funding systems that encourage rehabilitation and reward reductions in recidivism.
Performance-based funding policies create a system of incentives for public institutions. Under this scheme, institutions such as probation departments, parole offices, or even prisons can earn additional funding if they improve whatever ultimate outcomes are best for their clients and society.
In the case of probation, for example, that means fewer people failing probation and ending up in jail or prison. A probation department, in return, would be free to use the additional funding in whichever ways its leadership believes will continue to achieve better outcomes. Uses might include new or expanded programming, restorative justice practices, training, or even bonuses for officers. But if funds are allocated unwisely and outcomes recede, the department is ineligible for any additional funding until outcomes improve again.
This approach to policy directly aligns the incentives of the government with what is best for the public, and in doing so, it creates space for innovation. Instead of mandating specific programs that may or may not work, performance-based funding systems allow new ideas to bubble from the bottom up and direct resources toward the ideas that achieve the best results.
Over the last 15 years, state legislators have successfully applied this approach to probation systems in states as diverse as Arizona, California, Illinois, and Texas — and with impressive results. After Arizona started offering incentives to its probation departments, revocations to prison dropped by 31% at the same time as the state’s crime rate fell by more than 25%. Meta-analyses of 17 performance-based probation reforms by the Urban Institute and the Cicero Institute both found that every policy reduced prison populations or slowed prison population growth while improving public safety.
About 45% of people admitted to prison were already on probation or parole. Therefore, improving outcomes through performance-based funding policies would have a massive impact on incarceration levels and is thereby a viable long-term COVID-19 mitigation strategy.
The influx of ARPA funding into corrections budgets gives state legislators a unique opportunity to set aside seed money for performance-based funding policies at no cost to their states. Performance-based funding policies only pay out if outcomes are actually improved and fewer people reoffend, so most states can use averted prison and jail costs to fund the financial incentives in the future. Seed costs for these policies are pretty low: Arizona, for example, allocated $3 million to its performance-based funding program.
States can also create similar performance-based policies to encourage innovation and better outcomes in prisons themselves. No performance-based prison policies currently exist, but states could allocate modest amounts of ARPA funding to pilot projects that incentivize more effective rehabilitation in prisons. Few states have sufficient data collection to evaluate prison performance adequately, but based on the success of performance-based funding for probation, it is clear that upgrading data infrastructure to make such policies possible in prisons is well worth the investment.
Performance-based funding has the potential to transform America’s criminal justice system. By tying the financial incentives of criminal justice institutions to effective rehabilitation and measurable outcomes, these innovative policies can reduce prison populations, mitigate the risk of disease from overcrowding, and improve public safety.
Devon Kurtz is the criminal justice policy manager at the Cicero Institute.
