During his 2020 campaign for the White House, President Joe Biden committed to easing reentry for formerly incarcerated people. He's since launched multiple initiatives to further that effort.

A main primary reentry initiative is the Second Chance Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2008. The law helps with reentry through housing support, education and employment assistance, mentoring programs, substance use treatment and mental health care.

Second Chance Act programs received $100 million in fiscal year 2021 under a budget set before Biden took office. That total rose to $115 million in fiscal year 2022, the first budget under Biden's presidency. Funding rose again to $125 million each in fiscal years 2023 and 2024, for a three-year cumulative increase of $65 million over the fiscal year 2021 baseline.

Biden proposed $125 million in funding for fiscal year 2025, which has not yet been approved by Congress.

Beyond the Second Chance Act funding increases, the Biden administration announced a strategic plan in 2023 to support rehabilitation during incarceration and enable successful reentry. 

One element of the plan is to let states use Medicaid funds to offer health care services, including treatment for substance use disorders, to people in custody. The Biden administration is also permitting states to use state opioid response grants to fund addiction treatment for incarcerated people. 

The administration also provided prison employees with a performance management framework to monitor medication treatment for opioid use disorder among inmates.

Some of the strategic plan's elements are in progress but not finalized, including a provision to lift a federal ban on felons with drug-related convictions from receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (or food stamps). The provision was added to the 2024 Farm Bill, which is on track to become law at year's end. 

Meanwhile, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a proposed rule in April to prevent "unnecessary" denials of housing assistance to people with criminal records. Under the proposed rule, housing authorities and property owners must consider several pieces of information, including how recent and relevant any criminal activity was, before they can deny or end services. 

Even without counting still-in-progress initiatives, Biden has enacted enough funding increases for the Second Chance Act to fulfill his pledge to expand services for people during and after incarceration. We rate this a Promise Kept. 

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to expand services for incarcerated and recently released Americans. His budget proposal takes a step in that direction.

Biden's pledge focused on expanding access to mental health and substance use treatment, educational opportunities, and job training, as well as lifting barriers that keep previously incarcerated people from accessing public assistance.

Biden's fiscal year 2022 budget proposal for the Justice Department, released in May, would increase funding to ease reentry after prison. It would do this primarily through additional funding for programs under the Second Chance Act, which was passed with bipartisan support and signed by President George W. Bush in 2008, then reauthorized by the First Step Act signed by President Donald Trump in 2018.

Biden's budget proposes a $25 million increase in Second Chance Act programs, which address reentry through such issues as housing, education, employment assistance, mentoring, substance use treatment, and mental health care.

The request, which would raise the program's funding from $100 million to $125 million, is intended to help the department make awards, conduct training, and provide technical assistance to state, local and tribal governments on reentry-related issues.

Separately, Biden followed up on the portion of his promise addressing public assistance for formerly incarcerated people. He included it in his American Families Plan proposal, released in April.

The administration said it would allow people convicted of a drug-related felony to receive funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.

"Denying these individuals — many of whom are parents of young children — SNAP benefits jeopardizes nutrition security and poses a barrier to reentry into the community in a population that already faces significant hurdles to obtaining employment and stability," the White House said.

The president's budget proposal projects that this change would cost an additional $106 million in fiscal year 2022 and an additional $776 million between fiscal years 2023 and 2031.

There is no guarantee that Congress will go along with the levels laid out in Biden's budget proposal; spending legislation will take months to determine. 

Still, Biden has carried over his campaign promise into his official budget proposal. We rate the promise In the Works.