The impact of US Government assistance on recidivism.

Background: Community re-entry from custody programmes facilitate access to community resources, such as cash assistance and food stamps, with the aim of reducing criminal recidivism. Evidence that these programmes achieve is mainly from longer-term prisoners rather than short-term jail inmates.

Aim: The aim of the study is to test the hypothesis that facilitating access to community resources while still in jail would reduce re-arrest rates among former jail inmates in the USA.