A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in Illinois

The Urban Institute released a report that is a part of the Returning Home initiative that develops a deeper understanding of the reentry experiences of returning prisoners, their families, and their neighborhoods. The report describes the process of prisoner reentry by examining the policy context of reentry in Illinois, the characteristics of Illinois' returning inmates, the geographic distribution of returning prisoners, and the social and economic climates of the communities that are home to the highest concentrations of returning prisoners. The report consolidates existing data on incarceration and release trends and presents a new analysis of data on Illinois prisoners released in 2001. The report is based on the data from several sources - the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, and Census data compiled by the Metro Chicago Information Center.