Two thirds of the people who are released from prison return in a short time.
Do-gooders have been trying, for at least a century, to change the conditions of prisons and prison-release-terms in order to reduce recidivism.
One hundred years of do-good effort has had no positive outcome. Of course this will not stop people from continuing to try for another century or two. There will always be do-gooders to fail at everything.
One of the reasons that recidivism is so high in the United States is that prisons are really not so terrible. If you have been in jail or prison it looks terrifying because you are probably middleclass. You poop in public. You shower in public. Prisons are noisy and often dominated by popular TV. Until you are inside the structure of a 'protection group', prison can be violent. The prison food is seldom good especially if you have favorites. The medical care is mediocre or worse. There is no real dental care.
Despite all of these problems, prison can be quite comfortable once you get used to it and certainly in comparison to a low income person's outside life.
When a person gets out of prison they find serious barriers to getting work, getting a comfortable place to live and providing all the necessities of daily life. Prison looks more appealing.
I do not suggest that we make prison more uncomfortable but I do suggest that we come to understand that recidivism is in fact a measure of how easy life is on the inside in comparison to the outside. The outside gets more difficult and technologically complex every day.
In the early 1980's I wrote a book called Mental Snacks, I suggested that the solution to recidivism, which still requires ex-felons to commit new crime to get back in prison. We need voluntary prisons where people can sign up for a three-year term. These voluntary prisons should be fairly clean and safe.
Voluntary prisons could pay for themselves by keeping criminals off the streets and by having some modest internal work requirements.