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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.
it's that the guy that landed you in jail while he got away free is going to get you into trouble again
There are a lot of things that can be done to reform prisoners and help them avoid recidivism. For that to happen however you have to actually want to help them rebuild their lives. American "justice" is more about getting revenge and punishing criminals Puritan style. No one really cares what happens afterwards.
In Canada there are basically two prison systems. One, for those sentenced to less than two years, is run by the province (thus a common sentence is "two years less a day"). The second, for those sentenced to two years or more, is run by the Federal Government. Recidivism rates for those sentenced to provincial jails is roughly 45% re-offend (statistics are lifelong, not three years as in the parent post's research). For the Federal system, it's less than 5%. Provincial inmates are released to the community they came from, while Federal inmates are paroled to a different community. They balance the releases by placing people based on the incarceration rate in a given community; in other words if 5 criminals are sent to Federal prison in a town, then 5 are released to that town, but are not from that town.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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The number one factor I've seen in recidivism is that after they offend, they continue to have the same friends as before and most of their friends are scumbags who either enable or encourage bad behavior. This is why the frequent fliers have such a difficult time getting through probation without violating. All the good intentions in the world don't matter if you spend your days hanging out with friends who are always getting high or hanging out at clubs where people get into fights. It only shows up as a geographical correlation in this study because criminals tend to be concentrated in certain neighborhoods regardless of whether they're incarcerated or not.
The little old lady who gets tipsy one day and slugs a cop if a very different probationer than the guy who slugs a cop because the cop is breaking up a fight between his buddies and a rival gang. The little old lady will go back to not engaging in criminal activity. She might moderate her alcohol intake better in the future. The ganger will go back to doing gang shit, which consists mostly of activities that will violate ones probation.
Criminals don't get back to prison through some mysterious osmosis process, they reoffend because it's hard to break bad habits, especially when your life is a giant maze of bad habits and people encouraging you to engage in them.
Pretty obvious, but sometimes the simple things need saying. That's a quote from the Bible, by the way. Evidently they had similar problems 2000 years ago.
:p
People are social animals and they are generally aiming to fit in with some social group or other. Going from a drug/petty crime tolerant lifestyle to a clean start often requires changing your circle of friends. I have a friend who did this and completely turned his life around. Just to clarify, I'm one of his new friends, not his old ones.
really do make a difference..
Yes, they do.
Move the ex-cons into my neighborhood, full of investment bankers and corporate executives. And they'll learn how not to get caught.
Have gnu, will travel.
The prison system is only half of the issue. Let's not kid ourselves, those in prison aren't there just for the hell of it. Many of them have in fact committed very serious crimes, and should in fact be locked up for the good of society. When a thug in a gang does a drive-by shooting and kills several people, some of them innocent bystanders, he should be in jail. When a thug peddles harmful drugs to kids, he should be in jail. When a thug steals from a shop and roughs up the cashier, he should be in jail, assuming he doesn't try to violently attack a police officer while leaving the crime scene and the officer shoots him in self-defence. When a thug breaks into a computer network closet and plants a device to steal and redistribute data he's not authorized to access and redistribute, he should be in jail. We can't blame the prison system for the harmful actions that people have voluntarily engaged in.
It's always been this way, about pretty much every aspect of social society. Most folks do (or don't do) whatever peer pressure pushes them to do.
Won't Someone Please Think of the Prison Barons?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I whole heartedly agree. I was in trouble w/ the law a little bit for "traffic" offenses. Every cop knew my car. Finally, after an overnighter, I was convinced I couldn't stay. I left it all. Moved away from town with few possessions.
Leaving my life behind, starting over, made a HUGE difference. Now, I'm quite the happy, productive member of society.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
This is another reason restricting "ex offenders are not allowed to live in this neighborhood because it is too close to a church/school/park/bus-stop/bank/check-cashing-business/bar/adult-entertainment-venue/etc" rules are bad ideas.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea to tell a particular offender who is on parole or probation he can't live in a given area as a condition of release, or that a particular ex-offender has to stay away from his past victims, but it is a terrible idea to have entire neighborhoods "off limits" to all ex-offenders or all ex-offenders of a given class (e.g. ex-gangbangers, etc.).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They get out, they get 3 years parole. On parole, if you look at your parole officer funny they can send you back. If your POs "workload" is too high they'll look for peeps to send back. Have a close friend or relative get sucked into the system, your attitude will almost certainly do a 180.
I'd like to see the stats for how many get sent back once they're off parole, and possibly correlate those to how many got send back for BS parole violations.
American "justice" is more about getting revenge and punishing criminals Puritan style
Incarceration is an admission that the convicted person is a threat to society and needs to be removed. We don't know how to rehabilitate felons, but we do know how to lock them up so they can't hurt people, at least for a while.
You got it wrong -- bankers and CEOs still get caught. But their punishment is tons of bailout money and a golden parachute.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
convicts who moved away from their old neighborhood when released from prison had a much smaller recidivism rate.
No kidding. Convicts who decided to change their life - changed their life. Those who went right back to their old neighborhood and fellow ex-cons went right back to their old life. Who woulda thunk it?.
I think that's the crux of it for ex-cons, but not for the reasons most people think.
When a former convict goes back into the same community that he committed his crimes in, he's probably going to fall back into roughly the same life that he had before as that life was probably the path of least-resistance for that neighborhood. Put him into a different neighborhood and he has to learn a new way to live, and there's a greater chance over the previous one that it will not include crime. No guarantee, but it's probably better odds.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Based on your lack of empathy and desire to see innocent people suffer to protect you, I project you as having a 50% chance of committing a crime in the future. I therefore propose locking you up for life in prison right now so you won't have the chance.
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Most of the people in prison today are there for non-violent drug offenses, and the police in the US are wildly inconsistent in how they apply drug laws. How much of this might be down to just the police departments being assholes?
...it's that bad group of friends that will get you into trouble.
-Styopa
As some people use the jail / prison system as there doctor and if the ACA goes away that may go up.
Many people have no reason at all to respect society or its laws. If you take a young person living in stark, dire and urgent poverty and realistically help them only to the point that they can move up to the level of grinding poverty then expect them to live in rebellion and act out their rage. On the other hand if you find a way for them to make upper middle class earnings and have a stable future you just might be shocked at how good a citizen they might become. A second issue is just plain rude cops and officials. I have met some nice cops but i have also met some really rude cops. Instead of simply being cold and business like maybe being friendly and even courteous would get a lot more positive response from the community. And when dealing with a mentally ill person or someone in a rage quite often they could call for numerous backup forces so that the chasing, wrestling stuff would be less common and more respectful to people being taken into custody. I understand that many times violence must be in play. But often a situation could be made less serious just by the presence of numerous officers. Jail and prison guards need new training as well. As they represent society to the inmates if they are rude or uncaring the inmates see this as reasons for revenge on society in general. Frankly I am astounded that men kept in some of our jails and prisons do not come out dedicated to deliberate mayhem upon all members of society.
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I am glad that you agree, more because you have personal experience of what we (you and i) know: how good is to leave the old life/friends/etc/ behind and start over if you have problems like those we discuss - sometimes people without such personal experiences can't understand (i don't blame them of course) how easy is to return to your "old bad yourself" if you are in your "old bad enviroment".
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
It's likely (IM uninformed O) that the obvious policy action -- requiring ex-cons and parolees to not live in their old neighborhood -- will not have as great an effect as the correlation suggests.
Some of those ex-cons may have had a greater commitment to avoiding recidivism, and they *chose* to avoid their old neighborhood. (A correlates with B because both are caused to some extent by C.) Forcing them (recidivism-prone and turnaround-prone) to do something that simulates a commitment to going straight may not help at all, and might even hurt. The lure of the old ways might persist, and not be countered by family and community support for their turn-around.
And it's possible that requiring it might even negatively impact those who would have *chosen* to avoid the old neighborhood. Being forced to avoid it might provoke contrariness.
It is a promising approach to test, though, if someone could be found who: (1) had the ability to do a pilot program, (2) had an incentive to reduce recidivism.
I'm having trouble identifying types of people who fit both criteria.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
If associating with known felons is a crime and/or a condition of parole, then the more felons who are in your neighborhood the more likely you are to associate with them and therefore the more likely you are to be guilty of that crime and thus return to jail. It's like saying, "The more donuts are in your proximity, the greater the chances of you getting fat."
This shows the same outcome about addiction --where did the person move to after rehabilitation?
"In the 1970s, a sizable number of U.S. servicemen in Vietnam self-identified as heroin addicts. But when they returned stateside, the number of these soldiers who continued their addiction was surprisingly low. Why? Turns out a massive disruption in their environment and routine played a big role in helping them change their behavior."
In essence, those that got rehab in Vietnam weren't craving it when they got home. Those that got rehab in the USA were the ones that had the hardest time breaking the cycle of addiction.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/05/371894919/what-heroin-addiction-tells-us-about-changing-bad-habits
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/01/02/144431794/what-vietnam-taught-us-about-breaking-bad-habits
No sig for you! Come back one year!
It wasn't easy, and certainly not what I wanted to do. But I was watching my future crumble. Another issue I think that holds these people in the same community is family. Family didn't want me to go, but I couldn't stay. My dad could sense that it wasn't what I wanted... but it's what I had to do. Looking back, they were part of the problem.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I understand very well what you describe, and how family can hold these people in the same community, even if the best thing for them is to leave that community - life make us wiser by such experiances, so at least we can say we are wiser... (note: you have to be wise to become wiser (!) - many people with the same experiances are not wise enough...)
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!