- Mentor Corps Reduces recidivism rate from 40% to 10%
- Annual savings to Minnesota Taxpayers: approximately $180,000
- Annual Cost of Mentor Corps discipleship program for 10 mentee: ~$100,000
- Annual return on investment (ROI): 180% ($180,000 ÷ $100,000)
The costs to Minnesota taxpayers for each prison inmate is approximately $35,000 per year. With the average sentence length of 8 years,the total cost per inmate is $280,000. Additional taxpayer costs include $25,000 per year for the inmate's family welfare, or $200,000 for 8 years. That's $480,000 for each inmate serving an average sentence length.
Statitistics show that of the 6,000 men released from Minnesota prisons annually, 40% return to prison within 12 months (the National average is 50%). Additionally, 67% of those coming out of prison are arrested within 3 years.
As you might imagine, the cost of ths problem is astrnomical. $480,000 times 2,400 inmates (6,000 x 40% recidivism rate) returning to jail annually amounts to more than a billion dollars!
Donations made to Mentor Corps have dramatic leverage in reducing these costs. Mentor Corp's annual budget is approximately $110,000 and it expects to utilize these funds to recruit 11 mentees and match them with 11 trained mentors. This works out to an approximate cost of $10,000 per mentee.
We believe our process of discipleship mentoring could reduce the recidivism rate from 40% to 10%. Thus, in our group of 11, the statistical expectation is that 1 instead of 4 would return to prison in 12 months. Thus, the potential savings to Minnesota taxpayers would be nearly $1.5 million on an "investment" of $110,000.