CRIME POLICY REPORT CRIME POLICY Vol. 3, September 2001 Vol. Prisoner Reentry in Perspective James P. Lynch William J. Sabol research for safer communities URBAN INSTITUTE Justice Policy Center Prisoner Reentry in Perspective James P. Lynch William J. Sabol Crime Policy Report Vol. 3, September 2001 copyright © 2001 About the Authors The Urban Institute 2100 M Street, NW Washington, DC 20037 James P. Lynch is a Professor in the William J. Sabol is a Senior Research www.urban.org Department of Justice, Law, and Society Associate at the Center on Urban (202) 833-7200 at the American University. His Poverty and Social Change at Case interests include theories of victimiza- Western Reserve University, where he is The views expressed are those of the au- tion, crime statistics, international the Center's Associate Director for thors and should not be attributed to the comparisons of crime and crime Community Analysis. His research Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. control policies and the role of incar- focuses on crime and communities, Designed by David Williams ceration in social control. He is co- including the impacts of justice author (with Albert Biderman) of practices on public safety and commu- Understanding Crime Incidence Statistics: nity organization. He is currently Why the UCR diverges from the NCS. His working on studies of ex-offender Previous Crime Policy Reports: more recent publications include a employment, of minority confinement chapter on cross-national comparisons in juvenile detentions, and of the Did Getting Tough on Crime Pay? of crime and punishment in Crime relationship between changes in James P. Lynch (James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia housing markets and neighborhood William J. Sabol eds.) and “Consequences of Incarcera- social change. Prior to coming to Case Delinquents or Criminals? Policy tion on Family Formation and Unem- Western, he directed research projects Options for Young Offenders ployment in Urban Areas” (with William on sentencing policy at the Urban Jeffrey A. Butts Sabol) in Crime Control and Social Justice Institute's Program on Law and Adele V. Harrell edited by Darnell Hawkins and Samuel Behavior. He received his Ph.D. from Myers. He serves on the editorial the University of Pittsburgh in 1988. boards of Criminology and the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Contents Executive Summary ............... 2 The Parole Population as the Reentry Population ........ 12 Introduction .......................... 4 The size of the parole population has increased, but the growth of the population is slowing Changes in Reentry Unconditional releases have contributed to the slowing of the growth of the Populations .......................... 5 parole population The decrease in overall time served on Annual Releases as parole has contributed to the slowing of the growth of the parole population the Reentry Population .......... 5 “Churners” on parole are being created The number of prisoners released each at a faster rate than they are year has increased, but the rate of successfully completing parole increase has declined The number of prison releases has increased more slowly than the prison Returning to Communities ... 14 population has increased The geographic concentrations of The proportion of released prisoners returning prisoners who are violent offenders has remained stable, while drug offenders account for Concentrations within core counties— a larger proportion of released the Cuyahoga County case prisoners “Churners” are returning to core The released prisoner pool consists counties in higher concentrations than of more “churners” previously The expansion of incarceration has Social and familial attachments of increased the number of persons soon-to-be-released offenders released from prison for the first time Macroeconomic matters in their lives Recently released prisoners are less likely to have participated in prison Summary and Implications .. 18 programs than they were in the past Stability and change in reentry Recapping the changes in releases from prison What more we need to know about reentry Endnotes ............................. 22 References .......................... 23 Prisoner Reentry in Perspective 1 Executive The massive increase in incarceration in the United States that occurred during the past 20 years Summary has now turned public attention toward the conse- quences of releasing large numbers of prisoners back into society. Prisoner reentry has raised questions about public safety, about how corrections systems should manage the volume of releases, and about how communities can absorb and reintegrate the return- ing prisoners. Very little is known about these mat- ters, yet speculation is rife that the volume of return- ing prisoners will result in more crime and in more challenges for supervision, and that it will reduce the capacity of communities to absorb ex-prisoners. In this report, data are presented on changes in characteristics of persons released from prison and of persons on parole, but these measures beg the question of whether reentry involves only those re- cently released, those under supervision, or the en- tire volume of persons who have previously been in prison. If the latter group is considered, then the scope of reentry expands to include the several mil- lion people who have spent time in prison. The limited data reviewed herein identify sev- eral of the complexities associated with prisoner re- entry. For example, the volume of offenders released from prison increased dramatically from 1980 to 2000, from about 170,000 to 585,000, but the rate of increase has slowed during the 1990s while the prison population continued to expand. This prison expansion occurred largely through the increase in length of stay in prison. But, as the data in this re- port show, longer stays in prison are associated with declining frequency of contact with family members, and contact with family members is believed to fa- cilitate reintegration into the community. Moreover, participation in programs in prison decreased dur- ing this prison expansion, so a larger number of re- leased prisoners reenter society not having partici- pated in educational, vocational, or pre-release programs. The increase in the volume of released offend- ers raises concerns about public safety. Yet, through- out the 1990s, as the annual number of offenders released from prison increased, the aggregate crime 2 Urban Institute Crime Policy Report rate actually decreased. Public safety concerns are tions are limited to the poorest neighborhoods in also raised in relation to the increasing number of central cities. Data from Cleveland suggest that a offenders released from prison with no conditions of number of the areas with high incarceration (and supervision, or “unconditionally.” On the one hand, eventually release) rates are located in or near work- the absence of a parole officer can be a detriment to ing-class neighborhoods. Such a geographic disper- reentry, as parole officers can offer minimal help to sion of incarceration and releases is consistent with ex-prisoners in locating resources. On the other the thesis about the spread of drug trafficking hand, little is known about the actual experiences throughout metropolitan areas. And, such a geo- of offenders released unconditionally. And while graphic dispersion also raises questions about the concerns are raised that unconditional releases may impacts of incarceration and reentry on these more be among the most serious offenders, data from some stable neighborhoods. If, as research shows, incar- states suggest that they return to prison at lower rates ceration is related to lower levels of employment and than those released with supervision. earnings, then the removal and return of large vol- The experiences with returning prisoners over umes of ex-prisoners to working-class communities the past decade suggest further that there has been can have potentially negative consequences for these an increase in the number who “churn” or recycle communities. through prison and parole. Comparatively few (20 In sum, this paper shows that the size of the percent) of those who have had a previous experi- returning prisoner and parole populations has in- ence on parole successfully complete their subse- creased, but that funding for supervision has not kept quent term of parole. By contrast, the majority of pace. It shows that there have been marginal changes offenders (75 percent) who are released onto parole in the composition of the population of reentering for the first time do successfully complete parole. As inmates that can make reentry more difficult than it first and subsequent discharges from parole each ac- has been, but at the same time, we have yet to ob- count for about half of those completing parole, these serve in the aggregate data many of the adverse con- parole outcomes suggest that the pool of “churners” sequences predicted. So while inmates reentering is increasing more rapidly than it is being retired. society now are more likely (1) to have failed at pa- The number of persons who enter prison for role previously; (2) not to have participated in edu- the first time in their life has increased in recent years. cational and vocational programs in prison; and (3) Many, perhaps most, do not return to prison. All of to have served longer sentences, which attenuates this suggests that these reentry populations are di- ties to families, it may also be the case that large verse and that planning for reentry