By James Hess and Susan Turner

California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) is a self-supporting training and production program currently operating within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). CALPIA provides training, certification, and employment to inmates in a variety of different fields. The goods and services produced by CALPIA are sold to the state and other government entities, which provides an economic benefit to the state. In addition to the vocational and economic aspect of the program, one of CALPIA’s missions is to reduce the subsequent recidivism of their inmate participants. In 2021, the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections prepared a report on the recidivism outcomes for individuals who had participated in CALPIA programs for at least six months (Hess and Turner, 2021). That report examined the effect of participation in CALPIA on the recidivism of CDCR inmates by comparing CALPIA participants with at least 6 months in the program and released between August 2014 and July 2018 with inmates who were accepted into the CALPIA program but were released before they could actively participate (i.e., the “Waitlist” group). That report found that participation in CALPIA was associated with reduced offending. CALPIA individuals had lower rates of arrests, conviction, and incarceration during a three-year follow-up than a Waitlist comparison group. Although the sample size for our analysis of Career Technical Education (CTE) was small, participation in this CALPIA program yielded lower recidivism rates than other CALPIA program participation. This report further analyzes the sample of individuals who participated in CALPIA programs by separating the CALPIA programs into thirteen different groups, placing similar programs together. Thus, it is a comparison within CALPIA programs only. The analysis strategy is the same as used in our previous report: we examine arrest, conviction and return to custody calculated at one-, two- and three-year post release for the individuals. Propensity score analyses were used to adjust for baseline differences in the groups. Our findings suggest that the enterprise programs perform about equally well with the exception of CTE, which appears to do slightly better than other enterprises. We also found a positive effect for CTE in our earlier report. Several other programs show patterns of higher or lower recidivism which are suggestive but not conclusive due to lack of statistical significance. We note that small sample sizes, using propensity score analyses, may have limited our ability to detect significant differences.

Irvine, CA: Center for Evidence‐Based Corrections University of California, Irvine 2023. 20p

By Andrew Blum and Alfredo Malaret Baldo

The problem is as old as the justice system itself—how to reduce the chance that an individual reoffends

after they commit an offense and become involved with the justice system. This challenge of reducing

recidivism remains critical. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, there are over 120,000 individuals in

state prisons in California. Another 380,000 cycle through jails in California every year. In 2021, roughly

25,000 individuals were released from prison in California. This is the scope of the challenge. In San

Diego County, a wide variety of agencies and organizations are working to address the recidivism

challenge. In addition, although there is no way to measure this accurately, there is a willingness across

the spectrum to experiment with new approaches and solutions. This report focuses on one area of

relatively new and promising approaches—those that elevate the talent and expertise of individuals with

“lived experience” with the justice system. Support for lived experience approaches is growing both

nationally and in San Diego. Beyond the rising number of lived experience initiatives, this type of work in

San Diego has become largely normalized. There is broad agreement that lived experience work should

be part of the portfolio used to reduce recidivism, with clear demand from stakeholders involved in

reentry, including law enforcement officials, service providers, community members, and, crucially,

justice-involved individuals. Given the growing prevalence of and support for lived experience approaches

in San Diego, it is important to create a deeper understanding of how to increase the impact of these

approaches. Toward that end, this report identifies strengths of lived experience approaches to amplify,

challenges of lived experience approaches to mitigate, and lessons from lived experience approaches

that can be applied more broadly. Based on a review of the research and dozens of conversations held

with stakeholders in San Diego, we identified the following strengths of lived experience app roaches: —

They can engage successfully with justice-involved individuals; — They can provide a model of success;

— They are skilled navigators of the social service and justice systems; — They bring a long-term

approach to their work; and — They have specific expertise that helps them help others. To amplify these

strengths, we suggest: (a) deploy lived experience practitioners during acute situations, (b) leverage lived

experience practitioners not only within programs but also as navigators across programs, (c) build

flexibility into programs that include lived experience practitioners, (d) encourage lived experience

practitioners to role model success without being directive, and (e) continue efforts to normalize lived

experience approaches. We also identified challenges of lived experience approaches, particularly

related to scaling the approaches more widely. These include: — The personalistic nature of many lived

experience initiatives; — The difficulty of finding, vetting, hiring, and training sufficient lived experience

practitioners; — The toll the immersive nature of the work takes on practitioners; and — The potential

reputational risks lived experience approaches present to individuals, organizations, and agencies. To

mitigate these challenges, we recommend (a) creating training and certification programs for lived

experience practitioners, (b) developing standards of practice, (c) creating organizational capacity -

building initiatives for lived experience organizations, (d) pairing lived experience with non-lived-

experience practitioners, (e) treating lived experience individuals as professional staff, and (f) developing

a lived experience advocacy coalition. Furthermore, seeking a broader impact, we identified five key

lessons from lived experience approaches that are transferable and can be applied by those without lived

experience who are designing and implementing initiatives to prevent recidivism. The lessons are: 1.

Create supportive spaces for justice-involved individuals to work through challenges; 2. Design programs

with flexibility so support can be tailored to individuals; 3. Ease navigation of services and improve

coordination among providers; 4. Engage justice-involved individuals with consistency and long-term

vision; and 5. Commit to providing trauma-informed care. We conclude this report by noting the

longstanding good practice in the social services field to design initiatives with the input of those impacted

by them. The key lessons identified from lived experience practitioners can be viewed in this way. They

provide insight on how to design more effective recidivism reduction initiatives based on the experience

and expertise of those who previously lived the challenges the initiatives are designed to address.

San Diego: University of San Diego, Kroc School Institute for Peace and Justice, 2023. 31p..

By Marco Castillo, Sera Linardi, Ragan Petrie:

Many previously incarcerated individuals are rearrested following release from prison. We investigate whether encouragement to use reentry support services reduces rearrest. Field experiment participants are offered a monetary incentive to complete different dosages of visits, either three or five, to a support service provider. The incentive groups increased visits, and one extra visit reduces rearrests three years after study enrollment by six percentage points. The results are driven by Black participants who are more likely to take up treatment and benefit the most from visits. The study speaks to the importance of considering first-stage heterogeneity and heterogeneous treatment effects.

IZA DP No. 17522

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2024. 46p.

By David Olson, Don Stemen, & Patrick Griffin 

Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice, through the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, collaborated with the Illinois Department of Corrections’ Planning and Research Unit to examine the number, characteristics, and circumstances of individuals on Mandatory Supervised Release (MSR, or “parole”) who violated conditions of their release and were returned to prison (i.e., “technical violators”). Over the past two decades, between 20% and 30% of all admissions to the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) have been individuals returned to prison as MSR technical violators. Given the substantial impact of these technical violations on overall prison admissions in Illinois, this report examines the characteristics and circumstances that led to those returns to prison during state fiscal year (SFY) 2020 (July 2019 through June 2020). Specifically, the Loyola team analyzed detailed information for all those returned to prison due to technical MSR violations during SFY 2020 (N=5,052), and compared it to findings from similar research that was conducted with a one-month sample of technical MSR violator admissions in 2010 (see https://spac.illinois.gov/publications/researchreports/msr-violators). What Did We Find? 1) The rate of technical violation admissions to IDOC has been relatively stable over the past decade, whether measured as a percent of admissions or as a percent of IDOC exits returned to prison within 3 years of release. Over the past two decades, technical violators have accounted for somewhere between 20% and 30% of all admissions to prison; similarly, between 20% and 30% of all of those returned to prison within 3 years of their release during this period have been returned as technical violators. 2) Although technical violators account for 20% to 30% of all admissions to IDOC, they tend to stay in prison for a shorter period of time than court-sentenced individuals. Over the past two decades they have accounted for a smaller proportion - between 7% and 12% - of the IDOC population. 3) Although the proportion of admissions accounted for by technical violators has remained relatively consistent over the past decade, the number of admissions for technical violations has decreased, consistent with the overall decrease in admissions to prison. During the 10-year period from 2010 to 2019 (pre-COVID), total admissions to prison fell 39%, with a 38% decrease seen in admissions for technical violations and a 40% decrease in court sentences. 4) Although previous research found wide fluctuations from month to month in the number of technical violators returned to prison during the 2001 to 2011 period, often due to politically-driven crackdowns, the only substantial change in admissions during the past decade occurred when COVID-19 dramatically reduced arrests and admissions to prison in Illinois. 5) Of those individuals returned to prison due to technical violations in SFY 2020, most (58%) were returned, at least in part, because of an arrest while on MSR, often for a violent crime or firearm possession offense. 6) One out of every 5 people (20%) “returned” to prison for technical violations in SFY 2020 did not have an approved place to live, and so were not in fact released at all (referred to as “gate violators” by IDOC). Most (84%) of those returned as gate violators had been serving prison sentences for sex offenses, a population that historically has challenges finding approved housing upon release from prison. 7) COVID-19 dramatically reduced the number of admissions to IDOC for technical violations and resulted in a shift in the nature of technical violations that resulted in admission to prison. While the percent of prison admissions accounted for by technical violations did not change between SFY 2011 and the portion of SFY 2020 that preceded the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a smaller portion of those admitted in the pre-COVID part of SFY 2020 were for non-arrest violations and a larger share of admissions involved new arrest charge(s), particularly for violent and firearm possession offenses. 

Loyola Chicago Center for Criminal Justice, 2023. 11p.

By Nidhi Kalra, Brian G. Vegetabile, Shawn D. Bushway, and Greg Baumann

In this paper from RAND, the authors argue that the recidivism statistics cited most often in debates about the collateral consequences of criminal conviction are not appropriate to answer the questions inherent in those debates. In particular, the behaviors of criminal justice cohorts are too often mistakenly used to describe, or are entangled with descriptions of, behaviors of the overall population of people who have ever had a conviction, served time in prison, or experienced some other event in the criminal justice system. This confusion has consequences.

This paper demonstrates that the most-cited recidivism statistics often are based on criminal justice cohort samples that disproportionately contain frequent participants in the criminal justice system and, as a result, have higher recidivism rates compared with the broader population of concern.

Santa Monica, RAND, 2022, 16p.

By: Rongqin Yu, NiklasLångstro, Mats Forsman, Arvid Sjolander, Seena Fazel, Yasmina Molero

Objectives

To examine Differences in recidivism rates between different prisons using two designs— between-individual and within-individual—to account for confounding factors.

Methods

We examined recidivism rates among 37,891 individuals released from 44 Swedish prisons in three security levels, and who were followed from 2006 to 2013. We used longitudinal data from nationwide registers, including all convictions from district courts. First, we applied a between-individual design (Cox proportional hazards regression), comparing reconviction rates between individuals released from prisons within the same security level, while adjusting for a range of individual-level covariates. Second, we applied a within-individual design (stratified Cox proportional hazards regression), comparing rates of reconviction within the same individuals, i.e., we compared rates after release from one prison to the rates in the same individual after release from another prison, thus adjusting for all time-invariant con founders within each individual (e.g. genetics and early environment). We also adjusted for a range of time-varying individual-level covariates.

Results

Results showed differences in the hazard of recidivism between different prisons in between-individual analyses, with hazards ranging from 1.22 (1.05–1.43) to 4.99 (2.44 10.21). Results from within-individual analyses, which further adjusted for all time-invariant confounders, showed minimal differences between prisons, with hazards ranging from 0.95 (0.87–1.05) to 1.05 (0.95–1.16). Only small differences were found when violent and nonviolent crimes were analyzed separately.

Conclusions

The study highlights the importance of research designs that more fully adjust for individual-level confounding factors to avoid over-interpretation of the variability in comparisons across prisons.

PLoS ONE 17(5): e0267941. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267941, 2022.

By Kathryn Bird and Melena Ward

Probation services in England and Wales are delivered through the Probation Service, which is responsible for protecting the public and reducing reoffending, both by delivering and enforcing the punishments and orders of the court and by supporting rehabilitation through empowering people on probation to reform their lives. The Probation Service is a statutory criminal justice agency and is part of Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) working together to supervise adult individuals at all levels of risk. People under the age of 18 who are serving sentences in the community are supervised by Youth Offending Teams, which are coordinated by local government authorities and overseen by the Youth Justice Board (a non-departmental public body). The Probation Service’s operations are divided into twelve Probation Regions (eleven in England and one in Wales), each of which is overseen by a Regional Probation Director (RPD) who works closely with other local and national partners to deliver effective supervision and can commission rehabilitative services from external voluntary and private sector providers.

Utrecht: CEP, Confederation of European Probation 2021. 54p.

By Hilde T. Werminka, A. A. J. Bloklanda,b, J. Beenc, P. M. Schuyt, . N. Tollenaare and R. Apel;

Noncustodial sanctions may present an attractive way to reduce the prison population rate, but only when noncustodial sanc-tions meet custodial ones in terms of deterring recidivism. Using administrative criminal records data of all individuals convicted in the Netherlands in 2012, this study examines the effects of short-term imprisonment versus noncustodial sanctions on crime. We employ an instrumental variables approach to account for selection processes and to produce consistent estimates of the effects of imprisonment. Findings indicate that being sentenced to prison rather than a noncustodial sanction increases the prevalence of recidivism by 10 percentage points and increases recidivism rates by 1.07 registered crimes during a follow-up period of three years. Treatment effect heterogeneity analyses show that the detri-mental impact of imprisonment is most pronounced for first-time prisoners, and adult offenders, compared to repeat prisoners and young adult offenders.IntroductionReducing the prison population is one of the biggest challenges faced in the criminal justice system across countries worldwide. There are many good reasons to exercise restraint when it comes to imprisonment. For one, imprisoning people is an expensive enterprise, and the costs of imprisonment typically weigh heavy on the criminal justice budget (e.g. Phelps & Pager, 2016). To the extent that imprisonment maintains or even increases marginalization of the imprisoned population following their release, these direct costs may be dwarfed by imprisonment’s indirect societal costs

Justice Quarterly, April 2023.

By The Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice

KEY POINTS • Despite the common practice of drug testing as a condition of supervision, there is no research that focuses on the effectiveness of drug testing on its own in reducing recidivism and drug use. • Increased drug testing as part of an Intensive Supervision Program (ISP) approach does not reduce re-offending but does increase the detection of technical violations and revocations. • Random drug testing alongside swift, certain, and fair sanctions shows evidence for reducing recidivism and drug use in the short-term but shows no benefit once the individual goes back to supervision as usual. • Drug testing works well as a way to monitor compliance with supervision conditions, but there is no evidence that it reduces re-offending or drug use when used apart from other supervision practices.

St.:Paul, MN: Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice , 2020. 4p.

Edited by Rui Abrunhosa Gonçalves

This book provides international perspectives on corrections, correctional treatment, and penitentiary laws. Although its focus is on African and South American countries, the information provided can be easily expanded to North America and Europe. The chapters present legal frameworks and applied research on prisons and their potential to deter crime and reduce recidivism rates. The book puts the human rights agenda at the forefront and is a useful resource for those who work in corrections, including prison, education, and probation officers.

London: InTechOpen, 2023. 146p.

By Damon M. Petrich, Travis C. Pratt, Cheryl Lero Jonson, and Francis T. Cullen

Beginning in the 1970s, the United States began an experiment in mass imprisonment. Supporters argued that harsh punishments such as imprisonment reduce crime by deterring inmates from reoffending. Skeptics argued that imprisonment may have a criminogenic effect. The skeptics were right. Previous narrative reviews and meta-analyses concluded that the overall effect of imprisonment is null. Based on a much larger meta-analysis of 116 studies, the current analysis shows that custodial sanctions have no effect on reoffending or slightly increase it when compared with the effects of noncustodial sanctions such as probation. This finding is robust regardless of variations in methodological rigor, types of sanctions examined, and sociodemographic characteristics of samples. All sophisticated assessments of the research have independently reached the same conclusion. The null effect of custodial compared with noncustodial sanctions is considered a “criminological fact.” Incarceration cannot be justified on the grounds it affords public safety by decreasing recidivism. Prisons are unlikely to reduce reoffending unless they can be transformed into people-changing institutions on the basis of available evidence on what works organizationally to reform offenders.

Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Volume 50. 2021

By Brady P. Horn,  Aakrit Joshi and Paul Guerin

  Substance use disorders (SUD) are very prevalent and costly in the United States and New Mexico. Over 20 million individuals in the US meet diagnostic criteria for SUD and over 65 thousand US residents died from drug opioid overdose in 2020. It is well known that there is a strong correlation between SUD and incarceration. National studies have found that on average two thirds of prisoners have SUD and approximately 30% of inmates report having an opioid use disorder (OUD). There is growing momentum nationally to incorporate SUD, particularly OUD treatment, into incarceration systems and numerous studies have found that providing medication for opioids use disorder (MOUD) in incarceration systems is clinically effective. Since 2005, there has been a Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) continuation program within the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) where individuals who were already receiving community-based treatment could continue their treatment within the jail. Prior work has found that this program was associated with reduced crime. In 2017 this program was expanded and started providing treatment to individuals who had not been receiving methadone in the community prior to incarceration. In this study we evaluate the impact of this treatment program. Data was collected from numerous different sources, linked, thoroughly cleaned, and a difference-in-difference empirical strategy is used. Robust evidence is found that MMT initiation reduced reincarceration. Our main results find that MMT initiation is associated with a perperson reduction in 19 incarceration days in the one-year period after jail-based MMT was received. We also find evidence confirming prior studies that found MMT continuation reduces recidivism. We find that jail-based MMT continuation is associated with a per-person reduction in 31 incarceration days in the one-year period post release. Also, a heterogenous Surve treatment effect is found where individuals that received jail-based MMT for longer periods of time had larger reductions in reincarceration. Individuals who received MMT initiation for 70 days or more were associated with 22 fewer reincarceration days and individuals that received MMT continuation were associated with 60 fewer reincarceration days.   

Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico, Center for Applied Research Analysis, 2022. 43p.

By Marta Nelson, Samuel Feineh and Maris Mapolski

To understand how the United States became one of the most incarcerated nations in the world, it is critical to understand the role that excessive and harsh sentencing has played. In this report, Vera addresses a main driver of mass incarceration: our sentencing system. Dismantling our system of mass incarceration in favor of a narrowly tailored sentencing response to unlawful behavior can produce more safety, repair harm, and reduce incarceration by close to 80 percent, according to modeling on the federal system. This report summarizes the evidence surrounding sentencing’s impact on safety, offers new guiding principles for sentencing legislation that privilege liberty, outlines seven key sentencing reforms in line with these guiding principles, and suggests a “North Star” for sentencing policy with a presumption toward community-based sentences except in limited circumstances. Severe sentences do not deter crime, retribution often does not help survivors of crime heal, and the U.S. sentencing system overestimates who is a current danger to the community and when incarceration is needed for public safety. Instead, we need a system that privileges liberty while creating real safety and repairing harm.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 81p.

Edited by Rui Abrunhosa Gonçalves 

This book provides international perspectives on corrections, correctional treatment, and penitentiary laws. Although its focus is on African and South American countries, the information provided can be easily expanded to North America and Europe. The chapters present legal frameworks and applied research on prisons and their potential to deter crime and reduce recidivism rates. The book puts the human rights agenda at the forefront and is a useful resource for those who work in corrections, including prison, education, and probation officers.

London: InTechOpen, 2023. 146p.

By Roger Pryzybylski, John Maki, Stephanie Kennedy, AaronRosenthal and Ernesto Lopez

  Long prison sentences—defined here as sentences of 10 years or more—may be imposed for several reasons, including to punish people engaged in criminal behavior, to prevent individuals from committing additional crimes in the future, and to warn the general public about the consequences of violating the law. This literature review explores empirical evidence on the relationship between sentence length and public safety. It synthesizes the best available research on the incapacitation and deterrent effects of prison sentences and examines whether, and to what extent, prison sentences affect individual criminal behavior and overall crime rates. The relationship between long prison sentences and public safety is complex. Although long prison sentences may be warranted in individual cases based on one or more of the varied purposes of sentencing, the imposition of such sentences on a large scale offers diminishing returns for public safety. Research consistently shows that a relatively small percentage of individuals are responsible for an outsized share of crime in their communities. But attempts to use long sentences to selectively incapacitate this population have been unable to overcome competing factors like the “replacement effect,” where the incarceration of one person leads to another individual taking their place, and the “age-crime curve,” the criminological fact that offending typically decreases with age. Since relatively few studies have focused specifically on long prison sentences, this analysis encompasses the broader literature on incarceration and crime. The report concludes with recommendations for future research.  

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2022. 17p.

By Matthew R. Durose and Leonardo Antenangeli

This report presents findings on recidivism of females from BJS’s study on persons released from state prison across 34 states in 2012. It compares females and males by their commitment offenses, recidivism patterns during the 5 years following release (from 2012 to 2017), and post-release offenses.

Washington DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023. 6p.

By Gretta L. Goodwin; et al.

Approximately 45 percent of people released from a federal prison are rearrested or return within 3 years of their release. The First Step Act included certain requirements for DOJ and BOP aimed to reduce recidivism, including requiring the development of a system to assess the recidivism risk and needs of incarcerated people. It also required BOP to provide incarcerated people with programs and activities to address their needs and if eligible, earn time credits. The First Step Act required GAO to assess the DOJ and BOP’s implementation of certain requirements. This report addresses the extent to which DOJ and BOP implemented certain First Step Act requirements related to the (1) risk and needs assessment system, (2) identification and evaluation of programs and activities, and (3) application of time credits. GAO reviewed legislation and DOJ and BOP documents; analyzed 2022 BOP data; and interviewed DOJ and BOP headquarters officials and BOP’s employee union. GAO also conducted non-generalizable interviews with officials from four BOP regional office facilities, selected to ensure a mix of different facility characteristics. What GAO Recommends GAO is making eight recommendations for BOP to improve its implementation of the First Step Act, including collecting data, ensuring its evaluation plan has goals and milestones, having monitoring mechanisms, and tracking unstructured productive activities. BOP concurred with six recommendations,

Washington, DC: United States Government Accountability Office , 2023. 110p.

By Kristin M. Tennyson, Ross Thomas, Tessa Guiton and Alyssa Purdy

This report is the fifth in a series continuing the Commission’s study of the recidivism of federal offenders released in 2010. In this report, the Commission provides an analysis of data on the recidivism of federal offenders who participated in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) drug abuse treatment while incarcerated. The study examines whether completion of drug programs offered by the BOP impacted recidivism among a cohort of federal offenders who were released from prison in calendar year 2010. The report combines data regularly collected by the Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal history records, and data on program completion and participation provided by the BOP.

Washington, DC; United States Sentencing Commission, 2022. 76p.

By Kristin M. Tennyson, Ross Thomas, Alyssa Purdy and Tessa Guiton,

This report is the sixth in a series continuing the Commission’s study of the recidivism of federal offenders released in 2010. In this report, the Commission provides an analysis of data on the recidivism of federal offenders who participated in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) vocational programs while incarcerated. The study examines whether completion of vocational programs offered by the BOP impacted recidivism among a cohort of federal offenders who were released from prison in calendar year 2010. The report combines data regularly collected by the Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal history records, and data on program completion and participation provided by the BOP.

Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, 2022. 80p.

By Kim Steven Hunt and Robert Dumville

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. In the future, the Commission will release additional publications discussing specific topics concerning recidivism of federal offenders.

Washington, DC; The United States Sentencing Commission, 2016. 61p.