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Prison Release, Religious and Civic Contexts, and Recidivism Samuel Carlson Thomas IV University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

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Prison Release, Religious and Civic Contexts, and Recidivism Samuel Carlson Thomas IV University of Arkansas, Fayetteville University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 12-2018 Prison Release, Religious and Civic Contexts, and Recidivism Samuel Carlson Thomas IV University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, and the Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons Recommended Citation Thomas, Samuel Carlson IV, "Prison Release, Religious and Civic Contexts, and Recidivism" (2018). Theses and Dissertations. 3033. https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3033 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Prison Release, Religious and Civic Contexts, and Recidivism A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology by Samuel Thomas University of Arkansas Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice, and Sociology, 2014 December 2018 University of Arkansas This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _________________________________ Casey Harris, Ph.D Thesis Director _________________________________ ______________________________ Shaun Thomas , Ph.D Rodney Engen, Ph.D Committee Member Committee Member Abstract Under the veil of mass incarceration many of the prisoners will be released, then later readmitted for another crime or parole/probation violations, which falls under the definition of recidivism. Criminologist have attempted to shed light on indicators that explain why some individual prisoners have higher likelihoods than others. I attempt to understand the specific context (at the county level) in which prisoners are released in one point in time and see if the context in which they are released can help explain their likelihoods of recidivating, specifically in the context of religious and civic organizations. I use data from the American Community Survey for key contextual level variables, InfoGroup for religious and civic organizational density, and National Corrections Reporting Program for individual level characteristics (and to track prisoner reentry). The results indicate that there is a relationship between religious organizational density and a decreased likelihood of recidivating. 2 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 4 Individual Factors 7 Contextual Factors 10 Gaps in Research 12 Corroborating Evidence: Civic and Religious Organizations and Crime 13 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS: WHY CIVIC AND RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS [SHOULD] MATTER 15 Social Disorganization Theory 15 Institutional Anomie Theory 17 THE CURRENT STUDY 18 Data 18 Unit of Analysis 19 Dependent Variable 21 Independent Variables 22 Analytic Technique 24 RESULTS 25 Model 1. Results 28 Model 2. Results 29 Model 3. Results 31 Model 4. & 5. Results 32 Robustness Check 33 CONCLUSION 34 Future Research 36 REFERENCES 38 INTRODUCTION Amidst the backdrop of mass incarceration, the United States now has one of the largest correctional populations in the industrialized world with nearly 7 million individuals under some form of correctional supervision (Garland, 2013) and 1 in every 138 United States residents in prison with a sentence of one year or more (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008). At the same time, around 1,600 adults are released daily from state and federal prisons back into their communities of origin (Petersilia 1999, 2003). Many of those who are released face barriers to successful reintegration (e.g., finding gainful employment, receiving treatment for substance abuse or mental health issues, enrolling in continuing education, etc.), while the likelihood of reoffending among these released inmates remains a concern among the general public (Greenfield, Beck, and Gilliard, 1996; Kubrin and Stewart, 2006). In turn, criminologists have, broadly, examined two issues associated with release from correctional institutions. On the one hand, a growing body of empirical literature explores the milieu effects of the released population on rates of crime and violence at the macro-level. The focus here is on whether the relative size of the released population is associated with higher rates of crime and violence in the communities into which they are released (Hipp and Yates, 2009) or, in turn, whether specific community characteristics condition that relationship. For example, Kubrin and Stewart (2006) explored the degree to which a large released population was more criminogenic in places with greater structural disadvantage or socioeconomic hardship. Overall, most research finds that prisoners released into areas with fewer resources for integration (e.g., halfway houses, etc.) or communities with higher degrees of unemployment and poverty tend to have higher rates of crime (Mears et al., 2008). 1 On the other hand, and central to the current study, another body of empirical research focuses at the individual-level on relative rates of recidivism and the factors most associated with success or failure (Kubrin and Stewart, 2006; La Vigne and Parthasarathy, 2005). Indeed, the Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report for the years 2005-2010 finds that 43% of offenders are re-arrested (Markman et al., 2016). Factors such as familial support (Evans et al., 1995), educational attainment (Mears et al., 2008), institutional support (Maume and Lee, 2003), and mental health or substance abuse problems (Hipp and Yates, 2009) all have been shown to significantly impact the likelihood of an individual reoffending. Unfortunately, insights from these two strands of recidivism research have yet to be fully integrated. Central to the current study, the context into which prisoners are released shapes both patterns of crime at the aggregate level, as well as the likelihood of recidivism among individual released prisoners. Yet, gaps in knowledge remain. First, few studies have explicitly examined the importance of civic and religious organizations as macro-level contextual features impacting the likelihood of recidivism, an individual-level outcome. While studies from Johnson et al. (1997) and Dodson et al. (2011) looked within prison settings at religious participation to predict if individuals would be more likely to recidivate after release, research examining religion or religious organizations at the contextual level remains scarce. Likewise, only a handful of studies have examined civic organizational strength as it bears on crime at the contextual level (e.g., Hipp and Yates, 2000), but no studies that I could identify examine both civic and religious organizations within communities in regard to an individual prisoner’s likelihood of recidivating. Second, those few studies that explore the role of religious organizations on recidivism tend to be geographically limited. For example, some limit their analysis to a single city (Hipp and Yates, 2009) or to a single state (Chiricos et al., 2007). Thus, there is the need to expand the 2 geographic scope of analysis in exploring how civic and religious organizations impact the likelihood of recidivism. Third, existing research also tends to be more dated (older). As such, our ability to understand the importance of civic and religious organizations in today’s prison release environment is limited. The last several decades include an influx of new immigrants and their geographic diversification (Singer, 2004), changes in low skill labor markets (Shihadeh and Barranco, 2010), and a slowing in prison population growth (Morenoff and Harding, 2014) that may impact released prisoners in unique ways not observed in prior research. Fourth, there is little empirical research exploring how religious and civic organizations mitigate the release of individuals into disadvantaged contexts. That is, how organizations and their participants might “soften the landing” of prison releases in more deleterious communities is empirically unsettled. To my knowledge, the only study to-date illustrating this in any way is now nearly a decade old and restricted to a single city (Hipp and Yates, 2009). Building on these gaps, the goal of this paper is to examine how key macro-level structural characteristics, including the relative presence of civic and religious organizations, impact the likelihood of individual recidivism amongst released prisoners. In particular, I ask: (1) Which community contextual and individual factors are associated with the likelihood of recidivism? And (2) Does the strength of the civic and religious context into which an individual is released condition (moderate) the criminogenic effects of disadvantaged communities? In exploring these questions, my aim is to advance empirical inquiry directed at the types of pro-social organizations that might aid prisoners returning to communities throughout the United States. While rates of adherence to religious organizations correlate with lower community rates of homicide, robbery, and assault rates (Harris et al., 2015; Ulmer and Harris, 3 2013; Lee 2006), religious organizations have also been proven to increase civic engagement in ways that might prove advantageous for former inmates (Beyerlin and Hipp, 2006). Likewise, where communities have higher participation in both religious and civic organizations there tends to be less crime (Lee and Bartkowski, 2004; Lee and Thomas, 2009), particularly because such organizations (and their members) help
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