Incarceration’s Devil Spawn – Recidivism!
Recidivism: It’s More than a Problem; it’s a Disgrace!
Some additional recidivism facts from the Bureau of Justice
Recidivism: It’s More than a Problem; it’s a Disgrace!
Fact 1. Crime rates have steadily declined over the past twenty-five years.
Fact 2. Low-income individuals are more likely than higher-income individuals to be victims of crime.
Fact 3. The majority of criminal offenders are younger than age thirty.
Fact 4. Disadvantaged youths engage in riskier criminal behavior.
Fact 5. Federal and state policies have driven up the incarceration rate over the past thirty years.
Fact 6. The U.S. incarceration rate is more than six times that of the typical OECD nation.
Fact 7. There is nearly a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by his mid-thirties.
Fact 8. Per capita expenditures on corrections more than tripled over the past thirty years.
Fact 9. By their fourteenth birthday, African American children whose fathers do not have a high school diploma are more likely than not to see their fathers incarcerated.
Fact 10. Juvenile incarceration can have lasting impacts on a young person’s future.
Some additional recidivism facts from the Bureau of Justice
Among state prisoners released in 30 states in 2005—
- About two-thirds (67.8%) of released prisoners were arrested for a new crime within 3 years, and three-quarters (76.6%) were arrested within 5 years.
- Within 5 years of release, 82.1% of property offenders were arrested for a new crime, compared to 76.9% of drug offenders, 73.6% of public order offenders, and 71.3% of violent offenders.
- More than a third (36.8%) of all prisoners who were arrested within 5 years of release were arrested within the first 6 months after release, with more than half (56.7%) arrested by the end of the first year.
- A sixth (16.1%) of released prisoners were responsible for almost half (48.4%) of the nearly 1.2 million arrests that occurred in the 5-year follow-up period.
- Within 5 years of release, 84.1% of inmates who were age 24 or younger at release were arrested, compared to 78.6% of inmates ages 25 to 39 and 69.2% of those age 40 or older.
* https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4986
Don’t Just Take Our Word For It!
It’s in the News!
This section is intended to provide easy access to selected, relevant websites and pages devoted to incarceration and recidivism. For each website, we have provided a brief quote from the page to enable the reader to determine if the information is of interest. New posts are added to the top of the page.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – Segment on Prisoner Reentry – Former offenders face enormous obstacles once they leave prison. John Oliver sits down with Bilal Chatman to discuss the challenges of reentering society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJtYRxH5G2k
SUCCESS-ORIENTED FUNDING: Reforming Federal Criminal Justice Grants –
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/SuccessOrientedFunding_ReformingFederalCriminalJusticeGrants.pdf
To be clear, many federal grants pay for important law enforcement programs that help control crime. The question is not whether police should have more money or less money, but rather what they do with that money. Washington should not be in the business of giving out funds without knowing and condoning their ultimate use. On August 23, 2014, President Obama ordered a review of the federal programs that send military equipment and money to police departments, often with no strings attached. He is right to do so. But these are not the only problematic federal programs. And excessive force is not the only harmful outcome. To bring full accountability to the flow of federal funds used by state and local law enforcement, the scope of review should be wider. News reports indicate the review will include the largest federal criminal justice grant program, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) administered by the Justice Department. But a review focused on JAG risks being too narrow. Rather, an effective review should extend to all federal grants for criminal justice purposes. This report recommends the President take swift executive action to reform these grants.
The Many Causes of America’s Decline in Crime – Feb. 11 2015 – A new report finds that locking up more offenders isn’t making people any safer—and may even be counterproductive. – Inimai M. Chettiar
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/the-many-causes-of-americas-decline-in-crime/385364/
What Caused the Crime Decline? examines one of the nation’s least understood recent phenomena – the dramatic decline in crime nationwide over the past two decades – and analyzes various theories for why it occurred, by reviewing more than 40 years of data from all 50 states and the 50 largest cities. It concludes that over-harsh criminal justice policies, particularly increased incarceration, which rose even more dramatically over the same period, were not the main drivers of the crime decline. In fact, the report finds that increased incarceration has been declining in its effectiveness as a crime control tactic for more than 30 years. Its effect on crime rates since 1990 has been limited, and has been non-existent since 2000. More important were various social, economic, and environmental factors, such as growth in income and an aging population. The introduction of CompStat, a data-driven policing technique, also played a significant role in reducing crime in cities that introduced it. The report concludes that considering the immense social, fiscal, and economic costs of mass incarceration, programs that improve economic opportunities, modernize policing practices, and expand treatment and rehabilitation programs, all could be a better public safety investment.
WHAT CAUSED THE CRIME DECLINE? – Feb. 12, 2015 – The link below is to the full report from the Brennan Center for Justice referenced in the previous post. – Dr. Oliver Roeder, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, and Julia Bowling – Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law – The endnotes from this heavily researched 139-page report are a treasury of resources on the issue.
https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/what-caused-crime-decline
The Effects of Prison Sentences on Recidivism – 1999 – By Paul Gendreau and Claire Goggin, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of New Brunswick, and Francis T. Cullen, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati –
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/e199912.htm
There are three schools of thought regarding the ability of prisons to punish. The first is that prisons definitely suppress criminal behaviour. The second perspective, the “schools of crime” viewpoint, proposes just the opposite, that is, that prisons increase criminality. The third, which we label the “minimalist/interaction” position, contends that the effects of prison on offenders is, with few exceptions, minimal.
We review the basic assumptions of each school, present the best evidence in support of their views and provide a brief critique of the merits of their position.
Keep Out of Jail Those Who Don’t Need to Be Locked Up – Feb. 26, 2015 – Author, Julia M. Stasch, is the president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/26/would-we-be-safer-if-fewer-were-jailed/keep-out-of-jail-those-who-dont-need-to-be-locked-up
Jail is where over-incarceration begins. Millions of people in jail today simply don’t need to be there, and the devastating costs and consequences fall disproportionately on low-income people and communities of color. This country’s reliance on jails has grown sharply; jail populations have more than tripled since the 1980s. There are now nearly 12 million admissions to local jails annually — almost 20 times the number of admissions to state and federal prisons.
While the primary purpose of jails is to detain those who are a danger to public safety or a flight risk, many inmates are neither. Nearly 75 percent are held for nonviolent offenses, such as traffic violations or drug charges. While three out of five people in jails are legally presumed innocent, they often must wait weeks, months or even years to have their cases resolved.