Coming up.

A lot of people I know never graduated high school, we had a graduation.

You know what I mean?

They give out a graduation and let you know that you have a accomplice thing.

For Vault Studios, I'm Reid Redmond.

You're listening to The Daily Crime.

Most people released from the prison system in the United States end up back behind bars

or committing another crime within the first five years after their release.

And the 10-year statistics are even more bleak.

650,000 inmates are released from prison every year, and a recent study concluded 83% of them

were re-arrested within the first nine years of freedom.

An organization in St. Louis, the Concordance Academy of Leadership, is working to change that,

not only locally, but eventually in cities all over the country.

They set a goal of reducing

incarceration rates by 33%. And we've reduced it by 44% exceeding the goal. And there's no

other organization on the planet that has come close to that.

Christine Byers joins us from KSDK in St. Louis, where she recently reported a three-parts series on the Concordance Academy of Leadership.

Christine, there's so much here that I'm excited to get to.

But can you start by giving us a brief introduction to the work that the Concordance Academy of Leadership is doing day to day?

Sure.

So its aim is to reduce the amount of people that end up going back to prison after being in prison. And so basically they do that through a variety of ways. They have an 18-month curriculum where, and it starts six months before somebody is released and continues for the 12 months,

their first 12 months of freedom.

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