Investing in Crime Prevention After the Crisis: Social Impact Bonds, the Value of (Re)Offending and the New ‘Culture of Crime Control’

Published online on March 08, 2021

Abstract

A recurring theme of criminal justice reform in the years following the financial crisis of 2008 has been the costs of incarceration and the effort to reduce correctional populations. This paper examines one aspect of this post-crisis landscape: the social impact bond (SIB). First piloted in Peterborough prison in 2010, SIBs use private investment to fund social programs with governments paying a return if these programs are successful. Drawing from research on SIBs in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, the paper explores this effort to turn (re)offending into an investment, its challenges and how SIBs reveal a financial ‘style of reasoning’ that is re-shaping the ‘culture of crime control’ with critical implications for providers, programs and participants.