input: [Action Item Number] 4.4.E [Action Item Name] Encourage States Receiving Federal Funds for Corrections Programs To Provide Assistance to BJS in Conducting Annual Recidivism Studies [Lead Agency] DOJ [Component(s)] BJS [Action Item Description] 
output: BJS reports that about 735,000 offenders were released from State and Federal prisons in 2008. Read more This tells us there is much work that needs to be done with helping people successfully and productively reenter society from incarceration. However, effective strategies cannot be employed without better data about the size and scope of this problem. BJS is currently funding the Criminal History Record Information Sharing (CHRIS) Project. This project works to create a data-sharing environment that will automate and standardize record retrieval from State criminal history repositories accessed through the FBI’s Interstate Identification Index (or III). The first use of this system will be to study the recidivism patterns of persons released from State prisons in 2005. Almost one-fourth of the prisoners released in 2005 had been incarcerated for drug crimes, so it will be helpful to understand the recidivism of these prisoners and the relation of drug arrests to all released prisoners. BJS and related partners will continue to collect and analyze these data and work with ONDCP to craft appropriate anti-recidivism strategies. BJS and NIJ are working together to examine the feasibility of linking data from the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) about the type of programs in which the inmates participated (such as employment training and education programs) to compare the outcomes from these programs. BJS is also working to link employment and health data to the criminal history records to evaluate the impact of these factors on recidivism.