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The U.S. holds 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners, spending $80 billion each year on a system that struggles with addiction, mental health, and high recidivism. The criminal justice system wasn’t designed to solve these issues—but today, that’s exactly how it’s used.

At Recidiviz, our mission is to reduce incarceration in ways that are safe, sustainable, and fair. But meaningful change doesn’t come from one organization—it requires insight and buy-in from everyone: people who work in the system and those who are incarcerated, victims and communities, legislators and technologists, judges and advocates. Each brings a crucial perspective.

Our core belief? We don’t have all the answers. But together—with those who’ve lived and worked in the system—we can build a better future.

Transparency and Accountability Are Foundational

Lasting reform only happens when data is accessible, decisions are explainable, and actors are accountable. Transparency, coupled with robust data protection, builds trust and allows for the identification of disparities and waste, while accountability ensures that interventions are not only well-intentioned but also effective and applied equitably. Too often, the system is closed off and hard to understand—even for those inside it.

We believe clarity fuels collaboration. When stakeholders have a shared picture of how the system works, what’s broken, and what’s improving, we create the foundation for real change.

“Recidiviz tools can really help us have an impact. If we know this far down in the weeds what’s causing poor outcomes, fixing it is the easy part. With this data, we can make strides at improving outcomes at the root of the issues” — Todd Schwent, Assistant Division Director of Probation and Parole, Missouri Department of Corrections

What this looks like:

  • We prioritize data security and privacy. We build our tools and processes to rigorously protect sensitive information, complying with best practices and ensuring our partners maintain control over their data.
  • We build data transparency. From public-facing dashboards (like those we have built for Pennsylvania and North Dakota) to national efforts like Justice Counts, we develop and support infrastructure to make the criminal justice system accessible and understandable.
  • We don’t build black boxes. Our tools are designed to be transparent and interpretable, ensuring human judgement is augmented, not replaced, and our partners can explain and trust the outputs.
  • We prioritize objective, evidence-based insights. Our analyses and models are grounded in verifiable data and reviewed regularly for accuracy, bias, and impact.
  • Our work is open-source. Our code is publicly available at github.com/Recidiviz, inviting collaboration and scrutiny.

A Complex System Requires a Collaborative Solution

Criminal justice affects all kinds of people and communities. To build tools that work for everyone, our team needs to understand and reflect the diversity of perspectives and experiences of the communities we serve.

“They ask for my opinions about real tools helping people in my community who’ve been through what I’ve been through. It makes me feel like I endured all of it for something.” — Kyle, currently on parole in Idaho

What this looks like:

  • We design with real users, not just for them. We collaborate with people in prison and on supervision, and with practitioners — like case managers and parole and probation officers — to design our tools. Our Trusted Tester program ensures we hear from people at all levels of the system, creating technology responsive to their needs.
  • We approach partnership with humility. Our team has a lot to offer, but also a lot to learn in this work. We partner with and listen to people who have spent their lives working on and within this system at the ground-level.
  • We ensure a wide, non-partisan range of viewpoints and experiences on our team and in our partnerships. Different perspectives help us see our blind spots and build better solutions.
  • We hire the best with inclusive practices that improve our ability to recruit top talent and reach people with proximity and perspective on the problems we’re solving, including formerly incarcerated candidates.

Everyone Deserves a Chance to Succeed

More than 9 in 10 people in prison will return home some day. We believe these people deserve an opportunity to rebuild their lives, to not only stay out of prison in the future, but go on to contribute to and thrive in their families and communities. Our tools help agencies allocate resources and make better decisions that recognize people's different situations, needs, and opportunities.

"...the numbers represent fathers, sons, mothers, daughters... all these people who deserve the right to succeed. It becomes a powerful tool to change systems, when that becomes clear to people."— Robert Rooks, CEO, One for Justice

What this looks like:

  • We help agencies direct support where it's needed most. Our tools identify opportunities to better allocate resources, creating more pathways for successful reentry.
  • We're committed to fairness and equity across the system. People need different types of support to succeed, and failing to support them where they are leads to worse outcomes—not just for them, but for the community.
  • We track both success and backstop metrics for each tool we make—to know if we're having our intended impact and to monitor for unintended consequences, such as inadvertently making things worse for one group versus another. These metrics are reviewed regularly as part of our monitoring.
  • We treat everyone with respect. We aim to be humble and kind in all our interactions, recognizing that government employees are often overstretched and underappreciated, and directly-impacted individuals deserve dignity and respect.

Together, these principles guide our mission to create a safer, smaller, fairer criminal justice system through technology.

Meet the people behind the work.

Our Team

Recidiviz in the Press

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Freakonomics Radio

5.12.23

Can Data Keep People Out of Prison?

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