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Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population

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Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population James Austin and Patricia Hardyman, George Washington University John Irwin, San Francisco State University This paper was produced for a conference funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on January 30-31, 2002. The views expressed herein are those of the authors, and should not be attributed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population Introduction Concepts of Risk, Needs, Much has and continues to be written and and Stability discussed on the topic of released prisoners. Fi- nally, after three decades of unrelenting efforts Prisoner Risk, Needs, and Stability by federal and state policymakers to incarcerate The recent interest in prisoner re-entry has record numbers of men, women and children, been grounded in the assumption that the ap- there is new concern about the consequences of proximately 600,000 prisoners being released America’s imprisonment binge on those incar- each year pose a substantial risk to public safety. cerated, their families and children, and the Not surprisingly, in these discussions, the unit communities from whence they came. Several of analysis has been prisoners and how best to states are reconsidering the wisdom of their in- change them by increasing either the levels of carceration trends and are pursuing new strate- treatment or supervision dosages, which admit- gies to start reducing their prison populations. tedly now are either non-existent or ineffective. But in order for prison populations to be low- The concern over prisoner risk is grounded in ered, policymakers and the public must be as- the often-cited high recidivism rates associated sured that such actions are safe and will not with prisoners. The typical and uncritically ac- compromise the public’s safety. cepted claim is that most released prisoners con- With these concerns in mind, we have tinue their criminal careers and that it’s getting drafted a paper that has the following several ob- worse. jectives. First, it is intended to provide a general Prisoner “needs” are related to risk in that discussion on the concepts of risk, needs and there are some individual treatment or rehabilita- stability at both the prisoner and community tive attributes that are known to be associated levels. We then draw our attention to the unique with risk of further involvement in crime. These situation faced by prisoners with children and would include education level, employment- the obstacles that must be overcome to maintain related skills, mental illness, substance abuse, any type of parental relationship while incarcer- and family relationships.1 Recidivism can be ated and after release. In particular, we focus on reduced, it is hoped, by applying accurate risk the plight of the growing number of prisoners models that determine which prisoners pose the serving lengthy prison terms (lifers). greatest risk and have the greatest needs for We close with some suggestions (both prac- treatment. Indeed, according to some, treatment tical and utopian) about what reforms (legisla- is most effective with high-risk offenders, al- tive and programmatic) are needed to address though this claim has not yet been demonstrated 2 these systemic conditions (both at the prisoner by independent studies. and community levels) that serve to worsen the The final concept of stability speaks to the imprisoned mother and father’s ability to suc- need for all persons, not just ex-convicts, to ceed once released. achieve some level of stability in their lives in the core areas of residency, employment and family. Sampson and Laub noted that these and other factors are “predictive” of when and how Papers prepared for the "From Prison to Home" Conference (January 30-31, 2002) 55 Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population J. Austin, J. Irwin and P. Hardyman persons enter and terminate their criminal ca- How Much Risk do Released Prisoners reers.3 In particular, adult experiences such as Pose to Public Safety? marital attachment and job stability that lead to Despite the concern over the risk to public stability in residency and relationships with safety that released prisoners pose to public similarly situated adults can serve to negate the safety, we believe this concern has been over- criminogenic effects of previous childhood and stated. Alternatively, we believe the data show adolescent experiences. Alternatively, incar- that such risk is relatively small with the noted ceration can serve to sharply disrupt whatever exception of those impoverished and isolated positive (as well as negative) ties may have ex- communities that have inordinate concentrations isted in the offender’s life and replace them with of such offenders. the routine of doing time. In so doing, incar- ceration serves to worsen these tenuous ties and In the early 1980s, the Bureau of Justice may actually increase the chances that one will Statistics conducted a national recidivism study. continue to be involved in criminal activities Although it found that most released prisoners rather than serving some deterrent or rehabilita- were re-arrested (63%), their crimes tended to be tive function. As Sampson and Laub observed:4 non-violent and often did not result in a return to prison due to lack of evidence or because they “One clear possibility is that current (sentenc- ing) policies are producing unintended crimi- were misdemeanor level crimes for which one nogenic effects. From our perspective, im- cannot be sent back to prison unless one is still prisonment may have powerful negative under parole supervision. More interesting was effects on the prospects of future employment the BJS conclusion that despite the relatively and job employment. In turn, low income, high re-arrest rate, the arrests linked to released unemployment, and underemployment are themselves linked to heightened risks of fam- prisoners constituted less than 3 percent of all ily disruption. Through its negative effects on arrests that occurred in the states under study. In male employment, imprisonment may thus terms of prisoner attributes, inmates who were lead indirectly through family disruption to in- older, female, high school graduates, and con- creases in future rates of crime and violence. victed of non-property crimes had the lowest re- The extremely high incarceration rate of young black males renders this scenario very cidivism rates. Significantly, the prisoner’s real.” length of stay was not associated with recidi- 5 vism. Table 1 U.S. Recidivism Study 1983 Releases – 11 States Time Period Re-Arrested Re-Convicted Re-Incarcerated 6 months 25% 11% 8% 1 Year 39% 23% 19% 2 years 55% 38% 33% 3 Years 63% 47% 41% Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1989. Papers prepared for the "From Prison to Home" Conference (January 30-31, 2002) 56 Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population J. Austin, J. Irwin and P. Hardyman There have been other studies that essen- resulted in little financial loss to the victims of tially mirror BJS’s findings. In an evaluation of crimes associated with released inmates. 6 the Illinois prison early release program, about There is also a widespread perception that 60 percent were rearrested with 40 percent being not only is recidivism rates high but that they are re-incarcerated. Despite the high proportion of increasing. Much of this concern is linked to prisoners being re-arrested, there was a sharp national reports showing that the number of in- decline in the rate of arrest after release as com- mates being admitted to prison are increasingly pared to the time prior to incarceration. This so- parole violators (Table 2). However, the ex- called “suppression” effect was attributed to tremely high number of technical parole viola- maturation, the multiple effects of imprisonment tions in California often serves to skew the na- and regression to the mean effects. Further, re- tional picture and masks variation across states. ducing the length of stay had no impact on re- cidivism nor did it impact the state’s overall crime rate since released prisoners account for such a small proportion of the state’s universe of arrests. It was also noted that most of the crimes Table 2 Number of Persons Incarcerated in State Prisons 1990 and 1997 Year State Prison Total Prison New Commit- Parole Vio- % Parole Vio- Population Admissions ments lators lators 1990 689,577 460,739 323,069 137,670 30% 1997 1,100,850 540,748 326,547 214,201 40% % Change 59.6% 17.4% 1.1% 55.6% Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Special Report. Truth in Sentencing in State Prisons. January 1999. U.S. De- partment of Justice. Papers prepared for the "From Prison to Home" Conference (January 30-31, 2002) 57 Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population J. Austin, J. Irwin and P. Hardyman Texas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania are incarceration rate has dropped from a high of three states that regularly report their prisoner nearly 50 percent for 1992 releases to a low of recidivism rates and provide some further in- 31 percent for 1997 releases. Similarly, Penn- sights on the level of risk posed by released of- sylvania has reported its three-year re- fenders (Table 3). In all three states, recidivism, incarceration rate has also declined from 50 per- as measured by the number of offenders who re- cent among 1994 releases to 42 percent for 1997 turned to prison, has been declining. Texas re- releases. The Kentucky recidivism rate has also cently reported that its three-year re- declined although at a more modest rate. Table 3 Reincarceration Rates for Pennsylvania, Texas and Kentucky, 1994-1997 Year Texas Pennsylvania Kentucky Two Years Three Years One Year Three Years Two Years 1994 32% 41% 27% 50% 35% 1995 24% 35% 27% 48% 33% 1996 23% 33% 21% 39% 34% 1997 21% 31% 22% 42% 32% Change -11% -10% -5% -8% -3% A more recent study of a sample of prison- state prison.
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