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Can horse taming prevent reoffending?

The EconomistAnthony Garrison, Toby
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  • Recidivism rates in the United States are critically high, with 77% of released prisoners returning to incarceration within five years.
  • The U.S. holds approximately 25% of the world's total prison population, a figure that has ballooned by 500% over the last 50 years following the adoption of mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes in the 1970s.
  • The Wild Mustang rehabilitation program at Arizona State Prison pairs inmates with wild mustangs to teach life skills focused on relationships, work, perseverance, and patience.
  • The program addresses a dual crisis: wild mustang herds on Bureau of Land Management lands are protected but cause ecosystem damage when overpopulated, leading to the rounding up of roughly 6,000 horses annually at a cost of $49 million.
  • Inmates in the program gain employment by caring for, housing, and breaking in these horses for adoption or sale, effectively creating a symbiotic relationship between managing the horse population and inmate rehabilitation.
  • Reoffending rates for participants who completed the program have dropped to 4% over the last five years, a significant reduction compared to the national average.
  • Specific data indicates that out of 50 inmates released after finishing the program, only two have returned to prison.
  • Program facilitators draw a direct parallel between the survival-focused mindset of wild horses and the inmate population, utilizing the horses to help prisoners learn to "think differently" and make positive choices easier to execute.
  • Inmates report profound psychological shifts, noting increased selflessness and a sense of purpose derived from prioritizing the needs of another living being over their own.
  • Despite the program's proven efficacy in reducing recidivism for individual participants, it is characterized as a "drop in the ocean" capable of assisting only a small fraction of the total prison population due to the high resource intensity and difficulty of scaling such initiatives.
  • Proponents argue that while the program is time-consuming and hard to establish, preventing even a "handful" of inmates from reoffending yields massive savings both monetarily and socially by creating productive citizens.