“Ever since then my life has been pretty much downhill,” said 26-year-old American Fork resident.

Last year she figures she found the bottom.

Arrested on three counts of possession of a stolen vehicle, she was looking at serious prison time. Her husband was arrested at the same time on attempted homicide charges in an unrelated case. Both were addicted to drugs. Her two children legally belonged to her mother and a set of twins had been given up for adoption.

She had been in jail at least 20 times over the previous decade. She’d also participated in multiple treatment programs — from drug court to House of Hope — though that mostly had to do with getting out of jail and less to do with actually getting cleaned up.

This time she says she means it.

She’s on her way thanks to a local program that helps those who land in jail multiple times. It’s worked well enough that Chaplain Richard Green is pushing for a federal grant that could quadruple the number of participants and ease the requirements for getting in. The grant is for $750,000 and would cost Utah County $119,000 in cash and $119,000 in in-kind donations.

Green’s current Re-Entry Assistance Program attempts to get repeat offenders out of jail by providing a year of rent up front and mentors to help them with education and employment.

It started with a few dozen of the most chronic offenders — those in 20, 30 or even 40 times.

“I dug pretty deep into the system to grab people,” he said.

The federal Second Chance program requires that a participant be at least 21, be a substance abuser, be homeless and have been sent to jail at least four times. Green says that is not too late to get someone out for good.

“If we don’t catch them at the fourth or fifth incarceration and they’re ingrained in the system, it’s pure torture to get them out,” he said.

How does one get arrested dozens of times? Often it’s a domino effect. A person gets arrested for DUI and loses their license. But the offender still has a job to drive to so they get arrested for driving without a license. In short measure, they don’t have a job, which leads to a bevy of other problems, Green says.

He has heard the complaints that such a program is merely enabling those who would game the system or release criminals of responsibility. The chaplain defends himself with success. A review of the numbers last year showed that the 31 people in the program had been in jail a total of 15,000 days before the program. After entering the program, those same 31 people have spent a total of 70 days in jail.

“I don’t know if I won, but tell them to look at the numbers,” Green said.

That isn’t to say jail time can’t deter. Talbot’s epiphany came while behind bars.

“I think sitting in jail, that really taught me a lesson,” she said.

But with no job, no education and no prospects, applying that lesson could have been daunting.

“I had nowhere to go,” she said. “I want stability. I wanted a good foundation and [Green] made it possible.”

Jails and prisons across the country are brimming, and though the release programs aren’t specifically designed to ease overcrowding it could provide some relief. Nationwide, more than 2.3 million people are in prisons or jails and 7.3 million people — 1 in 31 — are under some form of correctional control, according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. That’s more than double the rate during the Reagan Administration.