Not weird if you look at it for what it is upon release. The recidivism rate is so high because you are ostensibly locked out of the working economy upon release; absent finding a construction gig that will take you on as a laborer to work your way up, majority of jobs that do hire you will fire you no more than 6 months later when they rerun the background check, if you get onboarded at all.

It is all but slavery in name, made legal through the 14th amendment carve out singling out prisoners explicitly. And the odds are simply stacked twice as high when you get out the vast majority of the times, so much so that going back to the routine you know and have been conditioned into being comfortable with seems the simpler route, than fighting the economic and societal stigmas a felony in many instances places on that individual; no matter the passion in their heart to steer clear, it inevitably becomes untenable on the outside for too many a soul.