Abstract
Every society has its norms of behavior; every state has developed its laws and the system of law enforcement. There are people that violate laws and are punished according to the established law. This paper contains research of how soon felons return to prison after being released, analysis of the reasons of their return to prison and the discussion of the ways to diminish the number of prisoner recidivism.
Facing the Problem
Many people in the United States and all over the world are convicted for a variety of reasons. In prison they encounter another life. Some people change their life style after being released, and some gain skills in how to commit crimes from those “specialists”, who live their life in prison and “recruit” or simply teach interested felons.
“"Specialists" are prisoners who, after being released, commit the same crime they were just in prison for, while "non-specialists" are those whose new offense differs from what they were in prison for. Degrees of both specialization and non-specialization can be seen in the types of offenses the prisoners were rearrested for following their release.” (Langan & Levin, 2002, p. 9)
So, the main point is to study how released felons live and act after imprisonment and what are the reasons of their return to prison.
Studies show that prisoner recidivism has become the problem for the recent 30 years (Beck & Shipley, 1990; Langan & Levin, 2002; Wallerstedt, 1984). A sustainable number of felons return to prison or are rearrested by the end of 3 years after (Prisoner Recidivism, n.d.) (See Appendix I) being released. A great number of data represented in this paper is taken from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. A number of works and opinions from different resources are analyzed and referenced. The research method for prisoner recidivism rate is based on the analysis of the reports given to Bureau of Justice Statistics by 15 State departments of correction that participate in the national study of prisoner recidivism and of the report provided by The Sentencing Project (2010). In order to trace the tendency and dynamics of prisoner recidivism, the data analysis covers the recidivism rates of prisoners released since 1983 till 2009.
Prisoner Recidivism: Habit or Bad Luck
Prisoner Recidivism is an act of undesirable behavior that leads to rearrest and/or reimprisonment. It usually involves the following stages: release from custody (probation or program completion) and subsequent arrest (resulted from subsequent crime commitment). Every recidivism starts from the so called “starting event”, which is the first stage – release from custody. Depending on the date of starting event, recidivism is distinguished and studied according to recidivism periods (windows). Depending on the dimensions of recidivism window, individuals are considered to have recidivated if committed crime within recidivism window (Prisoner Recidivism, n.d.). According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics from April 2, 2011 (fig. 1) the percentage of prisoners who were rearrested, readjudicated, reconvicted, reincarcerated and reimprisoned within various recidivism windows is the following:
Fig. 1. Recidivism rates of prisoners released in …