A Reform Agenda for Safety and Prosperity
September 2026
Introduction
Businesses operate in communities negatively impacted by mass incarceration. They compete for workers in a labor market where tens of millions of capable people are locked out by a criminal record, absorb the costs of recidivism in the communities where they hire, invest, and operate, and face the risk and volatility of operating within a justice system that often reaches for its harshest punishments. Ultimately, they are left navigating a system that — despite its enormous public expense — is not delivering the safety or prosperity that businesses, families, or communities depend on.
A growing coalition of businesses has concluded that this is not sustainable and that the private sector has both the self-interest and the responsibility to use its political influence, business practices, and public platforms to drive reform. This policy agenda — the first produced by the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) — is informed by that collective insight.
The Responsible Business Initiative for Justice is an award-winning, international nonprofit that mobilizes the business community to advance justice through policy reform, business practice, cultural narrative, and sector-wide collaboration. Founded in 2018 on the premise that business is shaped by the justice system and has the power to reshape it in return, RBIJ helps companies leverage their influence to address the system’s persistent discrimination, over-criminalization, and cycles of punishment and poverty, and advance solutions that deliver fairness, support public safety, and promote economic prosperity for all.
Today, RBIJ works with a network of nearly 900 companies across dozens of policy campaigns, corporate partnerships, business convenings, and more, including some of the world’s most recognized brands.
We invite you to review these commonsense, bipartisan recommendations that, if implemented in the United States, will help create greater safety and prosperity for all.
Visit rbij.org/contact to join us.