Recidivism

 ( Criminology ) 

Some prisons offer vocational training. Vocational education directly prepares students for specific occupations rather than broad intellectual cultivation; common vocational training programs can include carpentry, electrical work, landscaping, office services, and welding. Correctional facilities can offer reading and writing groups. This form of education is meant to use literature and writing as a form of therapy and can be referred to as "bibliotherapy". Such programs can encourage interpersonal skills and social engagement within incarcerated individuals.

Degree-granting education programs are another form of educational opportunity available in correctional facilities. These programs are typically offered by institutions with well-established academic reputations, many of which are listed in the National Directory of Higher Education in Prison Programs. These institutions work to ensure that incarcerated students receive the same level of educational quality as their on-campus counterparts. Despite being a powerful tool for reducing recidivism, these programs remain uncommon in prisons due to financial and institutional constraints.

In 2002, Carmel stated that the term recidivism is often used in the psychiatric and mental health literature to mean "rehospitalization", which is problematic because the concept of recidivism generally refers to criminal reoffense. Carmel reviewed the medical literature for articles with recidivism (vs. terms like rehospitalization) in the title and found that articles in the psychiatric literature were more likely to use the term recidivism with its criminological connotation than articles in the rest of medicine, which avoided the term. Carmel suggested that "as a means of decreasing stigmatization of psychiatric patients, we should avoid the word 'recidivism' when what we mean is 'rehospitalization. A 2016 followup by Peirson argued that "public policy makers and leaders should be careful to not misuse the word and unwittingly stigmatize persons with mental illness and substance use disorders".

Also, economists and scholars who research issues related to the IMF use the term recidivism to refer to the behaviour of states who repeatedly engage in IMF economic programs such as SBAs. For example, South Korea, Zaire, Liberia and Panama each spent well over 12 years under consecutive IMF agreements.

According to the National Institute of Justice, almost 44 percent of the recently released return before the end of their first year out. About 68 percent of 405,000 prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for a new crime within three years of their release from prison, and 77 percent were arrested within five years, and by year nine that number reaches 83 percent.

Beginning in the 1990s, the US rate of incarceration increased dramatically, filling prisons to capacity in bad conditions for inmates. Crime continues inside many prison walls. Gangs exist on the inside, often with tactical decisions made by imprisoned leaders.

While the US justice system has traditionally focused its efforts at the front end of the system, by locking people up, it has not exerted an equal effort at the tail end of the system: decreasing the likelihood of reoffending among formerly incarcerated persons. This is a significant issue because ninety-five percent of prisoners will be released back into the community at some point.Hughes, T. & D .J. Wilson. "Reentry Trends in the United States , Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2002.

A cost study performed by the Vera Institute of Justice, a non-profit committed to decarceration in the United States, found that the average per-inmate cost of incarceration among the 40 states surveyed was $31,286 per year.

According to a national study published in 2003 by The Urban Institute, within three years almost 7 out of 10 released males will be rearrested and half will be back in prison. The study says this happens due to personal and situation characteristics, including the individual's social environment of peers, family, community, and state-level policies.

There are many other factors in recidivism, such as the individual's circumstances before incarceration, events during their incarceration, and the period after they are released from prison, both immediate and long term.

One of the main reasons why they find themselves back in jail is because it is difficult for the individual to fit back in with 'normal' life. They have to reestablish ties with their family, return to high-risk places and secure formal identification; they often have a poor work history and now have a criminal record to deal with. Many prisoners report being anxious about their release; they are excited about how their life will be different "this time" which does not always end up being the case.

It is estimated that three quarters of those returning to prison have a history of substance abuse. Over 70 percent of mentally ill prisoners in the United States also have a substance use disorder. Nevertheless, only 7 to 17 percent of prisoners who meet DSM criteria for a substance use disorder receive treatment.

Persons who are incarcerated or otherwise have compulsory involvement with the criminal justice system show rates of substance abuse and dependence four times higher than those of the general population, yet fewer than 20 percent of federal and state prisoners who meet the pertinent diagnostic criteria receive treatment.

Studies assessing the effectiveness of alcohol/drug treatment have shown that inmates who participate in residential treatment programs while incarcerated have 9 to 18 percent lower recidivism rates and 15 to 35 percent lower drug relapse rates than their counterparts who receive no treatment in prison. Inmates who receive aftercare (treatment continuation upon release) demonstrate an even greater reduction in recidivism rate.

• Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74.0%), larcenists (74.6%), motor vehicle thieves (78.8%), those in prison for possessing or selling stolen property (77.4%) and those in prison for possessing, using or selling illegal weapons (70.2%).
• Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for another homicide. These are the lowest rates of re-arrest for the same category of crime.
• The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 had accumulated 4.1 million arrest charges before their most recent imprisonment and another 744,000 charges within 3 years of release.

The ability of former criminals to achieve social mobility appears to narrow as criminal records become electronically stored and accessible.

An accused's history of convictions are called antecedents, known colloquially as "previous" or "form" in the UK and "priors" in the United States and Australia.

There are organizations that help with the re-integration of ex-detainees into society by helping them obtain work, teaching them various societal skills, and by providing all-around support.

In an effort to be more fair and to avoid adding to already high imprisonment rates in the US, courts across America have started using quantitative risk assessment software when trying to make decisions about releasing people on bail and sentencing, which are based on their history and other attributes. It analyzed recidivism risk scores calculated by one of the most commonly used tools, the Northpointe COMPAS system, and looked at outcomes over two years, and found that only 61% of those deemed high risk actually committed additional crimes during that period and that African-American defendants were far more likely to be given high scores than white defendants.

The TRACER Act is intended to monitor released terrorists to prevent recidivism. Nevertheless, rates of re-offending for political crimes are much less than for non-political crimes.