RICHMOND —  Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that, for the second year in a row, Virginia’s re-incarceration rate is the lowest in the country among states for which data was available, at 22.4 percent. According to a press release, the commonwealth’s recidivism rate has fallen a full percentage point since last year.

“Among the 45 states that report three-year incarceration rates for felons, no other state correctional system reports a lower rate,” officials said in the release. “Like most states, Virginia counts its official recidivism rate as the percentage of offenders who return to state-responsible incarceration within three years of being released.”

The release cited that the rate was calculated by following offenders released to the community in 2013 for three years.

“Of the 11,576 offenders released from incarceration in Virginia in fiscal year 2013, 2,588 were re-incarcerated within three years,” officials said in the release.