The New York City-based Justice Mapping Center, by mapping the residential addresses of every inmate in various prison systems, has explored the concept of “million-dollar blocks” — areas where more than $1 million is being spent annually to incarcerate the residents of a single census block. WNPR in New Haven, Ct., reports on how city officials there use such maps to establish re-entry programs in neighborhoods suffering from high incarceration and recidivism rates.
About 100 people are released to New Haven from prison each month, most returning to lower-income, high-crime areas identified on local resource maps. Programs like the New Haven Prison Reentry Initiative target ex-offenders as they return to their neighborhoods. The programs provide services like transitional housing and job training to help them make the transition back into community life, and also partner with local employers to make it easier for ex-cons to find jobs.