By Andrew Blum and Alfredo Malaret Baldo

The problem is as old as the justice system itself—how to reduce the chance that an individual reoffends

after they commit an offense and become involved with the justice system. This challenge of reducing

recidivism remains critical. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, there are over 120,000 individuals in

state prisons in California. Another 380,000 cycle through jails in California every year. In 2021, roughly

25,000 individuals were released from prison in California. This is the scope of the challenge. In San

Diego County, a wide variety of agencies and organizations are working to address the recidivism

challenge. In addition, although there is no way to measure this accurately, there is a willingness across

the spectrum to experiment with new approaches and solutions. This report focuses on one area of

relatively new and promising approaches—those that elevate the talent and expertise of individuals with

“lived experience” with the justice system. Support for lived experience approaches is growing both

nationally and in San Diego. Beyond the rising number of lived experience initiatives, this type of work in

San Diego has become largely normalized. There is broad agreement that lived experience work should

be part of the portfolio used to reduce recidivism, with clear demand from stakeholders involved in

reentry, including law enforcement officials, service providers, community members, and, crucially,

justice-involved individuals. Given the growing prevalence of and support for lived experience approaches

in San Diego, it is important to create a deeper understanding of how to increase the impact of these

approaches. Toward that end, this report identifies strengths of lived experience approaches to amplify,

challenges of lived experience approaches to mitigate, and lessons from lived experience approaches

that can be applied more broadly. Based on a review of the research and dozens of conversations held

with stakeholders in San Diego, we identified the following strengths of lived experience app roaches: —

They can engage successfully with justice-involved individuals; — They can provide a model of success;

— They are skilled navigators of the social service and justice systems; — They bring a long-term

approach to their work; and — They have specific expertise that helps them help others. To amplify these

strengths, we suggest: (a) deploy lived experience practitioners during acute situations, (b) leverage lived

experience practitioners not only within programs but also as navigators across programs, (c) build

flexibility into programs that include lived experience practitioners, (d) encourage lived experience

practitioners to role model success without being directive, and (e) continue efforts to normalize lived

experience approaches. We also identified challenges of lived experience approaches, particularly

related to scaling the approaches more widely. These include: — The personalistic nature of many lived

experience initiatives; — The difficulty of finding, vetting, hiring, and training sufficient lived experience

practitioners; — The toll the immersive nature of the work takes on practitioners; and — The potential

reputational risks lived experience approaches present to individuals, organizations, and agencies. To

mitigate these challenges, we recommend (a) creating training and certification programs for lived

experience practitioners, (b) developing standards of practice, (c) creating organizational capacity -

building initiatives for lived experience organizations, (d) pairing lived experience with non-lived-

experience practitioners, (e) treating lived experience individuals as professional staff, and (f) developing

a lived experience advocacy coalition. Furthermore, seeking a broader impact, we identified five key

lessons from lived experience approaches that are transferable and can be applied by those without lived

experience who are designing and implementing initiatives to prevent recidivism. The lessons are: 1.

Create supportive spaces for justice-involved individuals to work through challenges; 2. Design programs

with flexibility so support can be tailored to individuals; 3. Ease navigation of services and improve

coordination among providers; 4. Engage justice-involved individuals with consistency and long-term

vision; and 5. Commit to providing trauma-informed care. We conclude this report by noting the

longstanding good practice in the social services field to design initiatives with the input of those impacted

by them. The key lessons identified from lived experience practitioners can be viewed in this way. They

provide insight on how to design more effective recidivism reduction initiatives based on the experience

and expertise of those who previously lived the challenges the initiatives are designed to address.

San Diego: University of San Diego, Kroc School Institute for Peace and Justice, 2023. 31p..