Recidivism is often framed as a personal failure — as if people “just go back to prison” because they don’t want to change. After serving 23 years behind bars and now working directly with people returning home, I know that narrative is not only wrong, it’s dangerous. It blinds us to the real drivers of incarceration: unaddressed trauma, generational cycles, and a system that punishes pain instead of healing it. Trauma is the first sentence many people serve. Long before someone enters a prison, they are often living inside a different kind of confinement — one shaped by childhood trauma, poverty, addiction, and violence. Many of us grew up in homes where chaos was normal and survival was the only skill we were taught. When you grow up watching addiction, abuse, and emotional shutdown, those behaviors become your blueprint for coping. Addiction is not a moral failing. It is a learned response to pain. Abuse is not “natural aggression.” It is a learned response to fear. Hurt people hurt people — not because they want to, but because they were never taught another way to live. Generational incarceration: when prison becomes a family legacy In many communities, incarceration is not an isolated event — it’s inherited. Children grow up visiting parents in prison, watching siblings cycle in and out, absorbing the message that this is simply what adulthood looks like. Even schools enforce the idea with holding cells and school resource officers. When trauma is passed down and coping skills are never taught, incarceration becomes a generational pattern. I have met people inside who were locked up with their parents, cousins, even grandparents — entire family trees shaped by the same untreated wounds. When society ignores trauma, it doesn’t disappear. It spreads. Domestic violence and the repetition of what we learn People who grow up in homes where domestic violence is normalized are far more likely to repeat those cycles, not because they want to, but because violence feels like love, chaos feels like home, and instability feels familiar. Without intervention, without therapy, without someone teaching healthier ways to cope, the cycle continues. And when someone is already carrying trauma, they are more vulnerable to unhealthy relationships, peer pressure, and groups that offer belonging at the cost of safety — all of which can lead directly to criminal behavior. Addiction, homelessness, and the criminalization of survival For many, substance use begins as a way to numb pain. But addiction quickly spirals into job loss, broken relationships, and homelessness. And homelessness itself becomes criminalized — trespassing, loitering, stealing food, sleeping in public spaces. Most people don’t end up in prison because they’re dangerous. They end up there because they’re unhealed, unsupported, and trying to survive. Prison does heal trauma. It creates more. Once someone is arrested, society imagines prison will “correct” them. But prison is not a place of healing. It is a place of punishment, deprivation, and trauma. I lived it. I know what it means to be isolated for years, to be strip‑searched, to be denied basic human dignity. I know how starvation — physical, emotional, and spiritual — changes a person. I know how the constant threat of violence rewires your brain. Prison does not rehabilitate. It deepens wounds. It teaches people to one again to survive, not to heal. And then we release them back into society and expect them to thrive. Reentry barriers push people back toward the system. When people come home, they face a world that claims to believe in second chances but often denies them in practice. Employers reject applicants with records. Landlords refuse to rent to them. Even when someone is sober, motivated, and ready to rebuild, society slams doors in their face. Imagine trying to stay clean and stable when you can’t get a job, can’t get housing, can’t support your family, are still carrying untreated trauma, and are still surrounded by the same conditions that harmed you. Hopelessness becomes its own kind of relapse. And the system is always ready to catch people — not with support, but with handcuffs. Second chances make communities safer. People do not heal in cages. They heal in communities that believe in their potential. When we give people real second chances — access to treatment, stable housing, employment, and trauma‑informed support — we see transformation. I am living proof. I went in at 19 with an underdeveloped brain and a lifetime of trauma. I came home after 23 years and rebuilt my life because I was finally given space to grow, to heal, and to be seen as more than the worst thing I ever did. I was given something most people aren’t afforded — love, acceptance and support. Today I am a CEO, a case manager, an advocate, and a woman who was granted a full and absolute pardon — not because prison rehabilitated me, but because community, opportunity, and belief did. There are thousands of people just like me — people who could become taxpayers, caregivers, leaders, and contributors if we stopped treating them as disposable. If we want safety, we must choose healing over punishment. Recidivism is not a reflection of people’s unwillingness to change. It is a reflection of our unwillingness to address trauma, break generational cycles, and provide real pathways to stability. Its a result of communities being allowed to intentionally bar people coming home from successfully reentering. If we want safer communities, we must invest in healing — not cages. We must invest in people — not punishment. And we must believe that every person, no matter their past, deserves the chance to write a different future. Tracie Bernardi Guzman is CEO of Reentry Solutions CT Inc. ...read more read less