“In the age of information overload, the ultimate luxury is meaning and context.” — Louis Rossetto (1993)

In a nutshell, Recidiviz aims to prevent avoidable prison admissions, accelerate earned release, and reduce disparities. We partner closely with practitioners, advocates, and academics to elevate the efforts of other reformers in the ecosystem.

The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world. Across the country, policies exist to help improve outcomes, but without the data in the hands of ground-level decision makers, they can’t reach their intended impact.

We’re here to bridge that gap. As an organization, we aren’t here to exist in perpetuity, but to resolve root problems causing mass incarceration.

"We shape our tools, thereafter our tools shape us" — John Culkin (1965)

To shape a safer and more equitable society, we organize around three major areas of work:

• Safely accelerate people out of the system

• Build the public data foundation for a smaller system

• Support the passage of decarceral legislation

“Any observant local knows more than any visiting scientist. Always. No exceptions.” — Roger Payne (1996)

Our process is ongoing and iterative to ensure that we are adapting our products to the real needs of both agency staff and communities impacted by the criminal justice system.

The steps might look something like this:

• Bring data from fragmented agency databases into one place

• Identify pain points and areas of opportunity for building a safer, smaller, more effective system

• Design tools based on these specific needs, wrapped around existing workflows

• Validate designs with agency users and justice-impacted community members

• Track outcomes against goals to ensure effectiveness

• Iterate designs based on user feedback and impact metrics

We are a passionate group of designers, data scientists, and engineers, bringing a diverse set of backgrounds to the criminal justice space. From behavioral economics to journalism, our collaboration informs every decision we make.

We currently have ~7 people focused on research and design. Only some of us are listed in read.cv.

You can always check out our website or reach out to Juan directly.
juan@recidiviz.org