Ventura County government has quietly joined a brave new world of government financing. The county has signed off on a program that will use private money to pay for a program to reduce recidivism. If the program succeeds, the private investors will get their money back (plus interest), and taxpayers will pay the bill.
This is the Pay for Success financing model that was launched in the United Kingdom six years ago and has moved to the United States, mostly under the umbrella of the nonprofit Social Finance group.
The state Legislature kicked off the idea in 2014 by creating the Social Innovation Financing Program and kicking in $5 million to pay for grants to three counties interested in creating programs to reduce recidivism. Ventura County joined Los Angeles and Alameda counties as the three successful grant applicants for the initial pool of money.
In all likelihood, Ventura was selected because it is building off a similar, successful program called Core Connection being run by Interface Children & Family Services. That program, started in 2014, takes people released as a result of AB 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act designed to reduce prison overcrowding, and provides a specific program and training to help them re-enter our communities.
In the first year, the program provided services to more than 430 clients. That group was compared with a similar-size group who received the traditional post-release support and community supervision. The Core Connection clients showed a 27 percent improvement in recidivism and 87 percent improvement in probation violations.
So the program works. And now they want to expand it to probationers not covered by AB 109.
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