I recently spent an hour talking with local attorney T. Scott Jones on his radio program, The Weekly Law Roundup. The conversation was not about a specific case or breaking legal news. It was about something far more consequential to public safety in Tennessee: what happens when someone leaves prison — and why so many end up coming back.

We talked about reentry after incarceration. What works. What doesn’t? Which policies actually reduce reoffending — and which ones feel tough but accomplish very little? We also talked about what needs to change and what needs to remain firmly in place.

One thing became clear early in the discussion: recidivism (the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend) is not primarily a sentencing problem. It is a reentry problem. Accountability matters. Consequences matter. No serious reentry model disputes that. But public safety does not rise or fall on punishment alone. It rises or falls on whether people leave prison with enough structure, supervision, and support to avoid repeating the same behavior.

During the hour, a listener raised a question that often sits just beneath the surface of these conversations: What about the victims? How do we honor them while talking about helping people who have committed crimes?

The answer is uncomfortable for some, but important to say plainly. Victims are honored when offenders are held accountable. A guilty verdict is entered. A judge imposes a sentence. Prison time is served. That punishment is imposed with full knowledge that release or parole will eventually be an option. Accountability is not bypassed — it is enforced.

What comes next is not about excusing harm. It is about preventing it from happening again.

Our goal after incarceration should be simple: create fewer future victims. If someone leaves prison and reoffends, the system has failed twice — once for the original victim, and again for the next one. And we know statistically that most people are not caught on their first offense. Crime patterns develop over time. Breaking those patterns matters.

That is why the first weeks after release are often the most fragile. Housing, transportation, employment, treatment access, and accountability all converge. When those pieces are missing, the risk of reoffending increases — not because someone wants to fail, but because instability compounds quickly. That instability affects victims, neighborhoods, courts, and law enforcement alike.

We also discussed a persistent misconception: that focusing on reentry means choosing between being “tough” or “lenient.” That’s a false choice. The real distinction is between policies that feel satisfying in the moment and policies that measurably reduce future crime.

Recidivism is not abstract. It shows up in court dockets, jail overcrowding, probation caseloads, and repeated calls for service. When reoffending decreases, the benefits ripple outward — fewer victims, fewer arrests, and fewer families disrupted.

An hour on the radio does not solve a decades-old problem. But it can clarify it. And if Tennessee is serious about public safety, we have to be serious about reentry — because that’s where the cycle either breaks, or repeats.

Det. Brandon Burley (Ret.), M.P.A., is a criminal justice educator whose academic work focuses on reducing recidivism through public policy. He has authored several criminal justice books and has been published in national law enforcement publications.

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