Consistently over the last 134 years government actors have used “recidivism" to measure “success” after incarceration. According to census data collected on the prison population in 1890, reentry from incarceration has been a problem for more than a century. In a special report published by the US Census Bureau in 1923, “Prisoners Antecedents,” it was reported that approximately 60% of incarcerated people had been previously incarcerated (or otherwise institutionalized). Despite considerably greater attention to the perils of the reentry process during the last 20 years than at any time in the last hundred, and greater public and private investment in supporting people during reentry the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reports that still 82% of people released from prison in 2008 were arrested at some point within the 10 years following their release from incarceration, and of those, 61% returned to incarceration.  Certainly these staggering figures indicate that despite greater investment in addressing reentry we have not yet determined an effective way to stop the cycle of reincarceration.

In my presentation I will demonstrate that by limiting our attention to whether someone does or does not end up back incarcerated recidivism statistics stymy our ability to solve the problem of reentry. I will start by discussing the controversy surrounding how to accurately measure and interpret recidivism statistics. Grounded in my experience working directly with formerly incarcerated people at a small reentry non-profit serving the New Orleans community, as well as my experience directing a reentry clinical program at University of Virginia School of Law, I will then address why the unemployment rate among formerly incarcerated people is greater than 27%, compared to a national rate of 5.2% – even though they are more active job seekers than their peers who have not been incarcerated; why of those who are able to find employment, over 90% are earning wages that keep them at or below the poverty line; why formerly incarcerated people are dramatically more likely to be homeless immediately following release and housing insecure in the years following; why the most common cause of death after release from incarceration is drug overdose – occurring at a rate 12.7 times higher than the general population; why at least 20% of people leaving prison report being food insecure – twice the rate of the general population; and ultimately, why, there are currently more people incarcerated for a second or subsequent term than for the first time. I will conclude by describing specific examples of reentry programs and support networks that are reimagining public safety and public health measured beyond recidivism.

Kelly Orians, an expert on helping formerly incarcerated people reenter society and prevent recidivism, directs the Decarceration and Community Reentry Clinic at the Law School. Her scholarship has focused on the collateral consequences of arrests, convictions and incarceration, as well as the history and impact of sentencing reform and prisoner reentry reform.

In 2015, she was awarded an Echoing Green Fellowship to help launch The First 72+, a holistic reentry services organization serving formerly incarcerated people in New Orleans, and Rising Foundations, a community development corporation dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated people become business owners and homeowners. Today, Rising Foundations is a division of The First 72+ promoting economic empowerment services. Orians served as the co-executive director of The First 72+ until June 2021, and she now serves on their board of directors.

Orians graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she focused her studies on public policy and the rise of mass incarceration. After graduating, she worked at the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana in New Orleans, managing a statewide advocacy campaign to end the practice of sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole (JLWOP). She helped create public policy and impact litigation strategies, including the implementation of the Graham v. Florida decision, which made JLWOP unconstitutional in non-homicide cases. Orians worked on the legal team that secured the release of the first two people in the country under Graham, drove them home from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, and supported them through their reentry. Through this work, Orians was exposed to the many barriers people and their families face when someone returns home from prison and began taking innovative approaches to combat the lack of reentry resources in New Orleans.

In 2012, Orians was accepted into the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law, where she specialized in critical race studies, and business law and policy.

Orians has received the Richard Cornuelle Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Manhattan Institute, a fellowship from the Global Good Fund, and the Michael Rubinger Fellowship for Community Development from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. In 2019 she was named a “Leader in Law” by New Orleans City Business, and in 2020 she was awarded the J.M.K Innovation Prize from The J.M. Kaplan Fund. Orians is a member of the Louisiana State Bar, where she continues to practice in the areas of post-conviction, parole, and civil rights.