Recidivism

SIGNIFICANCE: While the modern criminal justice system has been placing increased emphasis on incapacitating greater numbers of offenders and for longer periods of time, recidivist rates have also been increasing, giving rise to the perception that most offenders are being caught in an ever-revolving door from which release is almost impossible.

During the 1998 US presidential election campaign, recidivism became a national issue when Republican candidate George W. Bush accused his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, of being “soft” on crime by calling media attention to the murderous behavior of a convict named Willie Horton whom Dukakis had released from prison. The Horton case became a national cause célèbre and the notion of incurably violent recidivists was imprinted in the minds of Americans. That notion was reinforced by another highly publicized case in 1993, when former convict Richard Allen Davis kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered a young California girl named Polly Klaas. The Polly Klaas case then gave rise to the three-strikes law movement in California.

The concept of recidivism has produced a variety of definitions and special applications. However, the meaning that is most widely used defines recidivists as offenders who serve time in prisons, reenter society, and violate their parole or commit new crimes that return them to custody.

Scope of the Problem

Figures from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics show that more than 3.7 million adults in the United States were under community supervision (probation or parole) at the end of 2021. Of these parolees, approximately 36 percent had been convicted of violent crimes and 30 percent for drug use. The majority of these offenders were under the regular supervision of parole officers, but large caseloads, geographical distances, and dwindling funds have been reducing the levels and effectiveness of post-release supervision.

Research has shown that roughly 65 percent of the 410,200 adults exiting parole in 2021 were successfully discharged from their parole responsibilities. About 27 percent exited parole because they were incarcerated.

In 1989, the federal government released its first comprehensive study of recidivism of prison inmates who had been released on parole in 1983. The most startling finding of that study was that within three years of their parole discharge, 62.5 percent of the former inmates had been returned to custody as the result of new crimes or parole violations. In 1994, a new version of the same study showed that the three-year recidivism rate had increased to 67.5 percent. The same study in 2005 found the rate to be about the same (67.8). Of particular importance is the fact that more than one-half of those who returned to custody did so within one year. However, 76.6 percent of released prisoners were rearrested within five years.

Reasons for Parole Failure

In 1974, a study on the effectiveness of correctional programs published by Robert Martinson was reduced to a public perception that “nothing works.” This indictment was seized by the political proponents of the “get tough on crime” movement and used as an academically produced and research-oriented justification for the dismantling and abandonment of most rehabilitative efforts in corrections over the next three decades.

Since the 1970s, the United States has fought a continuous war on crime, drugs, and recidivism. New sentencing strategies, such as three-strikes laws, have lengthened average prison sentences. The result has been an escalating correctional population, though statistics indicate that the 1.18 million offenders held in prisons in 2020 was down from 1.5 million a decade earlier. Increased emphasis on incarcerating offenders has had both fiscal and philosophical consequences. Costs have skyrocketed as increasing numbers of offenders are incarcerated and for longer periods of time. Also, increasing numbers of prisoners are incarcerated in what are called supermax prisons, which isolate inmates as many as twenty-three hours per day. The tendency toward more severe incapacitation policies has led to reduced remedial services for inmates and further depersonalized them and alienated them from society.

Noted criminologists, such as Joan Petersilia and Jeremy Travis, have written extensively on the problems of parolees. Typical parolees are young male members of minority groups who have limited literacy and education, meager job skills, and negligible employment histories. They are often substance abusers or addicts, and many have physical, mental, and medical complications problems. These people tend to go through the criminal justice system without getting any help for their basic problems because of shortages of resources for treatment and rehabilitation programs and the reluctance of prison administrators to acknowledge the need to try something new. The result is that many of these people become repeat offenders, and recidivism rates continue to climb.

Solutions

Criminologists, such as Petersilia and Travis, generally agree that the only way to combat recidivism is to return to corrections programs that provide rehabilitative services before offenders are released from incarceration. They recommend that when offenders first arrive in prison, they should be properly assessed and diagnosed—both for levels of security they require and special needs, such as professionally run literacy and education programs. Criminologists also recommend that all undereducated and illiterate inmates should be required to participate in these programs with the goal of attaining high school certificates or the equivalent. Moreover, access to college education should not be denied to prisoners who wish to improve themselves. Similarly, substance abuse programs should be made available to all interested inmates and mandated for those identified as in need of such services. To encourage inmate participation in these programs, credits for sentence reduction should be offered.

Simultaneously, prisons must finance and support effective prerelease programs. The traditional bus ticket and two hundred dollars in “gate” money given to released prisoners is merely evidence of the system’s disinterest in the offenders’ successful reentry into society. Inmates should also be trained in ways that help them find housing and jobs upon their release. Indeed, job-training programs should be integral elements of the prison curriculum. Moreover, prerelease training should begin shortly after offenders are incarcerated and not be put off until shortly before they are released, as is generally done.

Upon their release, inmates should be provided with transitional housing—so-called “halfway houses”—to assist them in their transitions from total institutionalization to the free world. This is particularly important during the critical first six months after inmates are released. Halfway house programs provide structure, supervision, and services, while allowing former inmates an adjustment period before they are asked to face the demands and temptations of the free world.

While former inmates are in the community and under parole supervision, they should have immediate access to affordable and available aftercare services. Twelve-step programs are available worldwide and serve as the backbone for many substance abuse treatment programs, but other problems that involve personal, family, and social crises also require help. Providing all these services to former inmates is more cost-effective than dealing with the problems that arise when they return to criminal behavior that creates new victims and requires processing the same offenders through the criminal justice system and prisons again.

Reducing recidivism rates ultimately requires a fundamental philosophical shift in criminal justice and correctional policies. The current practice of warehousing offenders simply to incapacitate them must be modified. While it will always be necessary to protect society from truly violent and serious predators, rehabilitative services must be reinvigorated for the many nonviolent and petty criminals whose crimes are mostly related to substance abuse.

Bibliography

Carson, E. Ann, and Rich Kluckow. "Prisoners in 2022-Statistical Tables." Bureau of Justice Statistics. US Dept. of Justice, 2022, bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2022-statistical-tables. Accessed 9 July 2024.

Kaeble, Danielle. "Probation and Parole in the United States, 2021." Bureau of Justice Statistics. US Dept. of Justice, Feb. 2023, bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/probation-and-parole-united-states-2021. Accessed 9 July 2024.

"Length of Incarceration and Recidivism (2022)." US Sentencing Commission, 21 June 2022, www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/length-incarceration-and-recidivism-2022. Accessed 9 July 2024.

Martinson, Robert. “What Works? Questions and Answers about Prison Reform.” Public Interest 35 (1974): 2–35. Print.

Mears, Daniel P., and Joshua C. Cochran. Prisoner Reentry in the Era of Mass Incarceration. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2015. Print.

Petersilia, Joan. When Prisoners Come Home. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. Print.

Travis, Jeremy. “Invisible Punishment: An Instrument of Social Exclusion.” Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. Ed. Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind. Washington: New, 2002. Print.

Travis, Jeremy, and Sarah Lawrence. Beyond the Prison Gates: The State of Parole in America. Washington: Urban Institute, 2002. Print.

Zara, Georgia., and David P. Farrington. Criminal Recidivism: Explanation, Prediction and Prevention. New York: Routledge, 2016. Print.