Recidivism among Federal Offenders: A Comprehensive Overview
"This report provides a broad overview of key findings from the United
States Sentencing Commission’s study of recidivism of federal offenders.
The Commission studied offenders who were either released from federal
prison after serving a sentence of imprisonment or placed on a term of
probation in 2005. Nearly half (49.3%) of such offenders were rearrested
within eight years for either a new crime or for some other violation
of the condition of their probation or release conditions. This report
discusses the Commission’s recidivism research project and provides many
additional findings from that project."
View the Report
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Showing posts with label recidivism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recidivism. Show all posts
How Effective Is Correctional Education, and Where Do We Go from Here?
More than 2 million adults are incarcerated in U.S. prisons, and each
year more than 700,000 leave federal and state prisons and return to
communities. Unfortunately, within three years, 40 percent will be
reincarcerated. One reason for this is that ex-offenders lack the
knowledge, training, and skills to support a successful return to
communities. Trying to reduce such high recidivism rates is partly why
states devote resources to educating and training individuals in prison.
This raises the question of how effective — and cost-effective —
correctional education is — an even more salient question given the
funding environment states face from the 2008 recession and its
continuing aftermath. With funding from the Second Chance Act of 2007,
the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, asked RAND
to help answer this question as part of a comprehensive examination of
the current state of correctional education for incarcerated adults and
juveniles. The RAND team conducted a systematic review of correctional
education programs for incarcerated adults and juveniles. This included a
meta-analysis on correctional education's effects on recidivism and
postrelease employment outcomes for incarcerated adults, as well as a
synthesis of evidence on programs for juveniles. The study also included
a nationwide survey of state correctional education directors to
understand how correctional education is provided today and the
recession's impact. The authors also compared the direct costs of
correctional education with those of reincarceration to put the
recidivism findings into a broader context.
Read on...
Read on...
To help ex-cons, ban the box
The most telling predictor of whether an ex-offender will reenter the
community as a law-abiding and productive member, or whether instead he
or she will return to jail or prison, is employment. Former inmates
with steady jobs have fairly high success rates. For those who can't
find work, prospects are dismal.
It stands to reason, then, that society would do what it can to ensure that former inmates get jobs. The benefits are reaped not just by the freed inmates, who can put incarceration permanently behind them, or their families, who can have their loved ones and their breadwinners at home instead of locked up in distant cells where they can provide little familial, and no financial, support. It's obviously also better for communities to have their residents holding down jobs, paying their taxes and spending their earnings locally than shuttling back and forth to jail and, when in the neighborhood, having idle time and empty pockets.
Read on...
It stands to reason, then, that society would do what it can to ensure that former inmates get jobs. The benefits are reaped not just by the freed inmates, who can put incarceration permanently behind them, or their families, who can have their loved ones and their breadwinners at home instead of locked up in distant cells where they can provide little familial, and no financial, support. It's obviously also better for communities to have their residents holding down jobs, paying their taxes and spending their earnings locally than shuttling back and forth to jail and, when in the neighborhood, having idle time and empty pockets.
Read on...
THE EFFECTS OF PRISON VISITATION ON OFFENDER RECIDIVISM
Research Summary
Following recent studies in Florida (Bales and Mears, 2008) and Canada (Derkzen, Gobeil, and Gileno, 2009), this study examines the effects of prison visitation on recidivism among 16,420 offenders released from Minnesota prisons between 2003 and 2007. Using multiple measures of visitation (any visit, total number of visits, visits per month, timing of visits, and number of individual visitors) and recidivism (new offense conviction and technical violation revocation), the study found that visitation significantly decreased the risk of recidivism, a result that was robust across all of the Cox regression models that were estimated. The results also showed that visits from siblings, in-laws, fathers, and clergy were the most beneficial in reducing the risk of recidivism, whereas visits from ex-spouses significantly increased the risk. The findings suggest that revising prison visitation policies to make them more “visitor friendly” could yield public safety benefits by helping offenders establish a continuum of social support from prison to the community. It is anticipated, however, that revising existing policies would not likely increase visitation to a significant extent among unvisited inmates, who comprised nearly 40 percent of the sample. Accordingly, it is suggested that correctional systems consider allocating greater resources to increase visitation among inmates with little or no social support.
Read on...
Following recent studies in Florida (Bales and Mears, 2008) and Canada (Derkzen, Gobeil, and Gileno, 2009), this study examines the effects of prison visitation on recidivism among 16,420 offenders released from Minnesota prisons between 2003 and 2007. Using multiple measures of visitation (any visit, total number of visits, visits per month, timing of visits, and number of individual visitors) and recidivism (new offense conviction and technical violation revocation), the study found that visitation significantly decreased the risk of recidivism, a result that was robust across all of the Cox regression models that were estimated. The results also showed that visits from siblings, in-laws, fathers, and clergy were the most beneficial in reducing the risk of recidivism, whereas visits from ex-spouses significantly increased the risk. The findings suggest that revising prison visitation policies to make them more “visitor friendly” could yield public safety benefits by helping offenders establish a continuum of social support from prison to the community. It is anticipated, however, that revising existing policies would not likely increase visitation to a significant extent among unvisited inmates, who comprised nearly 40 percent of the sample. Accordingly, it is suggested that correctional systems consider allocating greater resources to increase visitation among inmates with little or no social support.
Read on...
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