CASE STUDY

Reducing Mass Incarceration

Santa Clara County hired DC Design to guide and co-develop its 3-year strategic plan for reducing jail recidivism. Through its framework of Multi-Stakeholder Human-Centered Design, DC Design worked with the county to map appropriate stakeholders and conduct focus groups/deep empathy interviews with those affected by the SCC criminal justice system.

Social System: Criminal Justice

Client Type: Government

Deliverable: Strategic Planning

THE PROBLEM

The United States incarcerates 25% of the world's incarcerated population, leaving families and communities broken in the process.

With a system that rarely offers a pathway to rehabilitation and stability, millions of formerly incarcerated people, upon release, find themselves back in jail a short time later. Decades of tough on crime policies such as mandatory minimum sentences, 3 strikes laws, and others have only exacerbated the problem, leading cities and states to build more jails and prisons to deal with crime.

THE PROJECT BRIEF

How might we reduce the rate of people coming back to jail after release by addressing the root causes of recidivism?

When the state of California passed a law that would send many criminal offenders held in state prisons back to local jails, most counties responded by preparing to build an additional jail. Santa Clara County responded differently, instead asking how they could design a system for reducing recidivism by addressing its core drivers. They hired DC Design to help them uncover those drivers and develop a 5-year strategic plan that would help them lead to renewed life outcomes, reduced recidivism, and better post-release quality of life for formerly incarcerated individuals.

THE RESULTS

  • Breaking silos: Service providers working in the jails

  • Transition services: New partnerships with San Jose State University, MHS/Linked, and Breakout Prison Outreach help clients create reentry plans (484 in 2022).

  • Focused funding: $8 Million for services targeting key focus areas.

  • Systems unity: Launched new initiatives to educate the workforce on the services of different departments.

  • Financial stability: Launching a new entrepreneurship incubator for incarcerated individuals to build businesses and receive job/trade training.

LEARN MORE

Social problems are complex. They cannot be solved overnight. Our clients come from different backgrounds and are focused on confronting a diverse range of issues, but one thing that unifies them is the decision they’ve made to reach for outcomes that are better than “good enough.”

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