One in three Americans has a criminal record. We have been measuring their success wrong.

Mission: Launch was founded by a mother-daughter team who experienced firsthand how the criminal legal system disrupts families, futures, and access to opportunity. That experience became a calling—and for over a decade, we’ve been turning bold ideas into lasting infrastructure for justice-impacted people.

We’re more than advocates. We are:

The Center for Modern Reintegration is the first research institution built to change what we count, what we expect, and what we call success — for 100 million Americans and the communities that depend on them.

We don’t just talk about change. We make it measurable, scalable, and built to last.

70M+

Americans carry an arrest or conviction record

BY 2023

That number becomes 1 in 3 adults in this country

BY 2023

That number becomes 1 in 3 adults in this country

$0

Invested in measuring reintegration the right way — until now

$0

Invested in measuring reintegration the right way — until now

$0

Invested in measuring reintegration the right way — until now

The system isn't failing by accident. It is measuring the wrong things.

High recidivism rates are not evidence that people cannot change. They are evidence that the systems designed to support reintegration were never built to measure the right outcomes — and were never held accountable for producing them.

We penalize people for the wrong failures. We reward the wrong successes. We make unrealistic demands of returning citizens while asking nothing of the agencies, employers, housing systems, and technology platforms that shape every step of their return. And we do all of this without a shared scientific framework for what genuine reintegration looks like or how to produce it.

"When reentry is done wrong, it costs all of us. The loss of unrecovered human capital is immeasurable."

That is the problem the Center for Modern Reintegration was built to solve.

Reintegration Science

The intellectual foundation of the Center — developed

By Dr. Pamela Keye

Dr. Pamela Keye holds a PhD and is a former award-winning K–12 educator and superintendent. After serving a 78-month federal sentence, she spent years developing the research framework that became Reintegration Science — a body of work arguing that the system measures the wrong indicators, makes unrealistic demands, and produces predictable failure as a result.

Dr. Keye brings what almost no researcher in this field can: the rigor of a scholar, the authority of a systems leader, and the lived knowledge of someone who navigated the reintegration process herself. She introduced Reintegration Science publicly for the first time on April 22, 2026.

A note from our founder

Teresa Y. Hodge

Co-Founder and President, Mission: Launch

We have made coming home too hard. I know this from lived experience. I know it from thirteen years of hackathons, from the Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center research paper my daughter Laurin and I wrote in 2020 on criminal background checks and artificial intelligence, and from every conversation I have had with someone who did everything right after release and still hit a wall.

The future we warned about in that paper is here. People with records and their data are vulnerable in ways we cannot afford to ignore. In a world being reshaped by technology and AI, reentry must be seen through a modern lens — and we must keep updating what we measure, what we expect, and the conditions under which we release people back into society.

Fifteen years of building Mission: Launch taught us that this work requires science, not just advocacy. It requires research, not just programs. The Center for Modern Reintegration is that next step. We are proud to launch it — and to launch it with Dr. Pamela Keye leading the work.

Teresa Y. Hodge

Co-Founder & President, Mission: Launch

teresahodge.com · @TeresaYHodge

Four Commitments

Unlock a world of meaningful connections, tailored experiences and seamless social interaction.

Research

Developing and validating the indicators, measures, and standards that define genuine reintegration — and publishing findings that advance the field.

Research

Developing and validating the indicators, measures, and standards that define genuine reintegration — and publishing findings that advance the field.

Research

Developing and validating the indicators, measures, and standards that define genuine reintegration — and publishing findings that advance the field.

Evaluation

Applying Reintegration Science to assess existing programs, policies, and systems — identifying what works, for whom, and why.

Evaluation

Applying Reintegration Science to assess existing programs, policies, and systems — identifying what works, for whom, and why.

Advocacy

Translating research into policy recommendations — making the scientific case for what modern reintegration requires of every stakeholder.

Advocacy

Translating research into policy recommendations — making the scientific case for what modern reintegration requires of every stakeholder.

Community

Building a network of researchers, practitioners, returning citizens, and institutions committed to getting this right — together.

Community

Building a network of researchers, practitioners, returning citizens, and institutions committed to getting this right — together.

Why this moment. Why Miami.

The Center launched publicly on April 22, 2026 at the Bank on 100 Million Hackathon in Miami — Mission: Launch's flagship annual event, held during National Second Chance Month. The room held technology builders, justice advocates, employers, researchers, law enforcement partners, and returning citizens. That is not a coincidence. It is the argument: every one of those stakeholders has a role in getting reintegration right, and none of them can do it alone.

Mission: Launch has been convening that room for fifteen years. The Center for Modern Reintegration is what we build next — the research infrastructure that turns fifteen years of frontline knowledge into science the field can use.