Hey friends! Welcome to Civic Issues #2!!
Today we’ll be unpacking a commonly used term that is fundamental to any Criminal Justice System, and that is recidivism!
Conceptually, recidivism is the relapse of a released offender back into criminal behavior. The actual definition of recidivism, though, varies depending on the time window measured as recidivistic and whether imprisonment, conviction, or simple arrest counts as recidivism. Basically, people love to disagree on what can actually be considered recidivism. For example, Defining recidivism as rearrest casts the widest net and results in the highest rates, but arrest does not suggest conviction, nor actual guilt (PPI). On the other side of that coin, If only re-imprisonment is recidivistic then those who are guilty of repeated crimes but weren’t convicted or haven’t had their cases yet escape the census for relapsed criminal activity. No matter how it’s measured, however, recidivism rates in the United States are too high for the current methods of criminal rehabilitations to be deemed “effective”.
There are many possible reasons for recidivism, ranging from maintained relationships with criminal peers to social stigmatization and inadequate skills necessary for employment. Extenuating factors, such as drug abuse, may further stigmatize ex-prisoners, pulling them further from reintegration into society and thus facilitating further crimes (Simply Psychology). Think of how the world looks from the eyes of a recently-released convict. You now have a brand on your face that stops you from getting a good job, applying for higher education, applying for financial aid, and even searching for housing. If you’ve also lost trust and support from family and friends for being locked away and have no savings to live off of, you may have literally no means of surviving then falling back into crime, likely getting rearrested.
A recent study on recidivism determined that among persons released from state prisons in 2008 across 24 states, 82% were arrested at least once during the 10 years following release. The annual arrest percentage declined over time, with 43% of prisoners arrested at least once in Year 1 of their release, 29% arrested in Year 5, and 22% arrested in Year 10 (Bureau of Justice Statistics). What this means is that, understandably, as you spend more time out of jail, you become less likely to go back. This makes solving the recidivism problem a matter of how quickly someone’s life can be turned around after being released. This is hard, however, when the real world sees you as nothing more than a criminal. It’s likely that your wouldn’t see yourself as anything else either.
To solve this, we must focus on policy built around creating fair and restorative alternatives to harmful legal systems, improving living conditions and life outcomes for people in jail and prison, and expanding opportunities for formerly incarcerated people to reach their potential.
One way to reduce recidivism is by focusing on the sentencing phase of a defendant’s case. According to a study by the National Institutes of Corrections on evidence-based practices, establishing trust between the defendant and the judge, their attorney, probation agent, therapist, and other stakeholders is crucial for changing the defendant’s behavior. The study highlights the effectiveness of trust-building and motivation-building in drug courts. When defendants had personal interactions with the judge, their engagement and participation in the sentencing process improved. This, in turn, increased their motivation to change the behaviors that led them to court in the first place. In simple terms, building relationships and showing an interest in the defendant’s success helps reduce their feelings of hopelessness and ambivalence towards the process. It also encourages them to actively participate in the proceedings, improving their chances of avoiding incarceration in the future (TREND).
Other ways of reducing recidivism include early assessment of risks and needs, incorporating an education program into incarceration, and improving substance abuse treatment.
It’s clear that our system currently works on the basis of “once a criminal, always a criminal” over the mentality of “once a criminal, still a human”, and the only way to change that is by restructuring the system as it is.
I hope this was illuminating and thought provoking to you! What do you think would help decrease recidivism rates in the U.S?
Stay curious,
~Asim
(PPI): https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html?c=pie&gclid=CjwKCAiAt5euBhB9EiwAdkXWOwQLz5GVnW6Mt1G57IK0G-d9CTWa16numszIV-PCcMCxeHk35BdtORoCg04QAvD_BwE
(Simply Psych): https://www.simplypsychology.org/recidivism.html
(BJC): https://bjs.ojp.gov/BJS_PUB/rpr24s0810yfup0818/Web%20content/508%20compliant%20PDFs
(Trend): https://www.trendwyoming.org/articles/proven-ways-to-reduce-recidivism/
This is a very interesting concept! I have seen the effects of drug use my entire life, and often times also how horrible a relapse can be. I never thought of it in a sense of crime, but it definitely makes sense that the trends would be the same. I love the way you wrote this post and the statistics are very useful. Great job!
I’ve heard of recidivism before but I never actually knew what it meant. Now I do and I think the points you raise about lowering the recidivism rate in America are very interesting. I don’t have a ton of background in the topic but I feel like our criminal justice system is focused too much on punishment rather than helping and rehabilitating. Great post!
I have never heard of recidivism before, but it is pretty sad concept. This post reminded me of the general idea that once you leave prison, you never truly “get out”. This is the idea that a lot of prisoners (especially young ones) leave only with the skills they learned in prison, and have problems with living normal lives due to the fact that “prison is all they know.”