State prison leaders say Ohio’s recidivism rate is about half the national average.
Ohio prisons director Gary Mohr says ex-offenders are being helped to tackle addiction, unemployment, and other barriers that may keep them from fully re-integrating into society.
He says that the national rate is 49.7 percent
“That’s pretty darn close to 50 percent, one out of two people across the country return to prison within 3 years. In Ohio, it’s 27.5. In fact, the last 5 years, we’ve consistently gone down. I’m a little nervous about how far we can go down, because it’ll never get to zero.”
Mohr says if Ohio’s recidivism rate matched that of the nation, there’d be 43-hundred Ohioans being returned behind bars every year
