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'Prisonized' Neighborhoods Make Recidivism More Likely
sciencehabit writes: One of the most important questions relating to incarceration and rehabilitation is how to discourage recidivism. After a prison stint, about half of convicts wind up back in the slammer within three years. But sociologist David Kirk noticed a pattern: convicts who moved away from their old neighborhood when released from prison had a much smaller recidivism rate. Kirk found that the concentration of former prisoners in a neighborhood had a dramatic effect on the likelihood of committing another offense (abstract). "So if an ex-con’s average chance of returning to prison after just 1 year was 22%—as it was in 2006—an additional new parolee in the neighborhood boosted that chance to nearly 25%. The numbers climb for each new parolee added. In some of the most affected neighborhoods—where five of every thousand residents were recent parolees—nearly 35% were back behind bars within a year of getting out." The rates stayed consistent even when controlling for chronic poverty and other neighborhood characteristics.
The experience of Memphis, Tennessee, as reported in The Atlantic, with breaking up high-crime neighborhoods and redistributing their inhabitants to other places: the bad guys quickly find their feet and begin preying on a broader class of victims, while the decent-but-poor find their social networks shattered.
Let's not kid ourselves, those in prison aren't there just for the hell of it.
You're kidding yourself. No other country imprisons as many people, either absolutely or per capita, and most other countries have far less violence than we do. And don't think we have less crime because of the prisons. America's prison rate soared after crime rates began to fall. Also, not every state has engaged in the prison building frenzy, and they have seen crime fall even faster. Prisons are incredibly expensive, diverting resources that could be beneficial. They breed more crime than the deter, and not just through recidivism, but also by destroying families and even neighborhoods. Boys growing up in fatherless homes, especially if that father is in the clink, are very likely to grow up into the next generation of criminals. Neighborhoods with a lot of "missing men" tend to be festering cesspools of poverty, substance abuse, illegitimate births, and criminality.
Nonviolent offenders should receive alternative punishments, so they can continue to be productive people, with family and social connections. Prison should be reserved for violent offenders that are a physical danger to other people.
On the bright side, this problem is finally getting some positive attention. Both Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul have spoken out against the "culture of incarceration", so hopefully it will get some attention in the 2016 campaign.
Of course, my Socialist-Totaltarian regime has a multi-pronged approach to addressing this:
1. All children will be confiscated from their parents and birth and raised in sanitary state-run facilities. Processes will be put in place to insure that no violent or sexual abuse of the children will be possible.
2. All children will be reversibly sterilized at puberty. Anyone wishing to breed will be required to pass a parental competency test.
3. For anyone unable to pass a parental competency test, the state will choose a partner based on specially-designed algorithms designed to insure the happiness of the couple.
4. All religion will be illegal except for the state-run one, which will involve Smurfs. Non-Smurfy behavior will be dealt with harshly.
I predict that my society would reach the "Utopia" stage within three generations.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?