This shouldn’t be a controversial issue here. We know that there are high recidivism rates in the US. The US has an astonishingly high recidivism rate, at least 75% of prisoners return within 5 years. The most likely people to (new word I learned...) recidivate are those who are in prison for property crimes. It is not a secret that property crime is often connected to drug addiction. Generally, the data seem to show that prisoners return for a variety of things, because they are involved in a broad range of criminal activities. It’s probably not a stretch to say that they are often related to drug addiction, and/or drug sales.
75% of ANY population being certain to go to prison means that we are not doing enough to prevent it, and we are intentionally making choices which only increase the financial and human costs.
National Statistics on Recidivism
Bureau of Justice Statistics studies have found high rates of recidivism among released prisoners. One study tracked 404,638 prisoners in 30 states after their release from prison in 2005.[1] The researchers found that:
- Within three years of release, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.
- Within five years of release, about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.
- Of those prisoners who were rearrested, more than half (56.7 percent) were arrested by the end of the first year.
- Property offenders were the most likely to be rearrested, with 82.1 percent of released property offenders arrested for a new crime compared with 76.9 percent of drug offenders, 73.6 percent of public order offenders and 71.3 percent of violent offenders.
www.nij.gov/...
To give you an idea of the costs of putting people back in prison, the costs of recidivism for just one state over five years is expected to be 16.7 billion
www.icjia.state.il.us/...
I have a friend who works with young people facing the prospect of entering the criminal justice system. His job is to try to work with them and their families to prevent them from ever getting put into the system. As we can see from the image below, a shockingly high percent of those young people who enter the system will return to it within 5 years.
84% of those 24 or younger who enter the criminal justice system went back within 5 years, according to this study.
www.bjs.gov/…
Obviously, there are private prison interests who work against reducing these numbers. That’s going to make it hard to implement plans that reduce the overall number of prisoners.
What I want to propose to Democrats running for office is that we can address both the serious human impact, and the massive shared financial burden of continually returning prisoners who have behaved exactly as the statistics say they will. An Apollo-like program aimed at increasing financial and human resources targeted at prisoners returning to the community.
We know many things that will reduce recidivism, but they cost money. For instance, prison education can reduce the recidivism rate by 40%!
A 2013 RAND Corporation study showed that participation in prison education, including both academic and vocational programming, was associated with an over 40 percent reduction in recidivism—saving $4 to $5 for each dollar spent.
www.thenation.com/…
Can any honest person tell you that such an investment wouldn’t be worthwhile? How can someone argue that a 1 dollar investment which returns 5 dollars is a bad idea? Not to mention that the human success of such a program will likely lead to a multiplier effect due to lowered prison populations as a result of lower recidivism rates.
I’m not an accountant, nor am I a criminal justice professional. I am, however, a teacher. I don’t currently work in a classroom. If my school system were to fail any particular population at a 75% rate, we would deservedly be criticized, and be told to change what we’re doing, or someone will change it for us.
I am terrible with numbers, but I can do fractions. If we invest a fraction of the almost certain future incarceration costs, can we make a large enough dent in recidivism rates to lead to a significant reduction in the future financial burden of maintaining such a high prison population?
As it stands, we are shooting ourselves in the feet, leg, thighs, but, abdomen, chest, and head when we simply accept that so many will return to prison. Couple this with the absolutely shameful and immoral cost to any young person who enters the criminal justice system, and it gets worse. Taking young offenders and putting them in a situation where we know 8+/10 of them will return to prison within five years is a complete abdication of our basic responsibilities as a democratic nation.
End pitch.
If you want to see some great stuff on foreign nations’ and the way they deal with police and criminal justice, watch this series of documentaries on Youtube.
Die Norden is a series of documentaries about the way Nordic nations deal with problems that all nations in the world face.
www.youtube.com/…
There is a full documentary that follows up the original “Die Norden” ½ hour TV doc. It’s now available streaming on Netflix. It used to be on Youtube, but they’ve moved it since then. I highly recommend it. There is an excerpt of it in the above playlist. I can only find the full movie on streaming Netflix right now.
www.netflix.com/…
Just as a personal issue when we discuss how to fix prisons is that the US has a meager, at best, social and financial benefits system. So, arguing that we could just do one thing and we can be like Norway with a 25% recidivism rate would be ignoring the fact that all of the other facets of US politics would stay the same.