Recidivism in the United States Criminal Justice System Essay

The tension between rehabilitation and punishment has been increasing dramatically. This is because there have been sharp rises in the prison population and repeat offender rates. When one area is over emphasized in relation to the other, there is the possibility that imbalances will occur. Over the course of time, these issues can create challenges that will impact the criminal justice system and society at large. (Gadek, 2010) (Clear, 2011) (Gatotch, 2011)

While many conservatives oppose the rehabilitative measures restorative justice offers offenders and demand more prisons and penalties, advocates for restorative justice counter this demand with research. Restorative justice advocates call for restitution rather than retribution. According to promoters for restorative justice, imposing harsh penalties on offenders and lengthening prison sentences is futile. “Critical theorists argue that the ‘old methods’ of punishment are a failure and that upwards of two-thirds of all prison inmates recidivate soon after their release” (Siegel, 2008, p. 188). While conservatives want to build more prisons and lock away more offenders for longer terms, supporters of restorative justice believe that a more rehabilitative approach is beneficial for not only the offender, but also the community. “The offender is asked to recognize that he or she caused injury to personal and social relations along with a determination and acceptance of responsibility. Only then can the offender be restored as a productive member of society” (Siegel, 2008, p. 190). Placing an offender in prison for any amount of time is shown to be harmful to the offender, their victim, and society. “Rather than reduce recidivism, harsher punishments may increase the likelihood of reoffending” (Siegel, 2008, p. 86). A conservative asking for more prisons would likely be met with a barrage of evidence explaining why restorative justice will and

Nationally, every 7 minutes, another person enters prison. And every 14 minutes, someone returns to the streets, beaten down and, more often than not, having suffered a great amount of violence during his or her incarceration. Professionals will tell you that incarceration really does very little to stop crime, but we go on spending billions of dollars in order to lock up more and more people. We have become the country with the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world. (National Criminal Justice Commission)

By the lack of rehabilitation programs in the state and federal prison systems, the chances of convicts releasing and returning back to prison increases rapidly. The lack of rehabilitation is one of the most leading causes to an offenders relapse or to a new crime that will be committed within 3 years from the offender’s release. A rehabilitation program

One of the most talked bout problems on the definition of recidivism is how unclear it can be. It has such a broad measure due to it not being broken down to one topic (ex. just convictions, just arrests, or even more importantly just acknowledging the amount of returns to prison). The BJS mentioned earlier (Bureau of Justice Statistics) studies the measures that the rate of recidivism by number of arrests, yet the one problem with it is just because you’re arrested doesn’t mean you are found guilty. Professor Edward Latessa, director of the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati claims “If you define it as a return to prison and you follow for a year, you’ll have a much lower rate,”

The revolving door of recidivism is extremely different than it was only just a few decades ago though. Nowadays there are so much more offenders being arrested and released from prison than there was in the past. Not to mention most of them nowadays have served significantly longer prison terms than those offenders in the past, which in turn contributes to recidivism and the increasing rates over the years. Very few and far in between ever really received the benefit of the vast rehab or even pre release programs in the prisons, so in turn they end up right back where there started. They go in without and education and they come out without an education; they go in with no social skills and come out with no skills, they go in criminal and come out an even better criminal. How does that all work?? Who knows but lock them up.

The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation’s prisons or jails. Incarceration is a widely argued topic with many understood viewpoints, and it directly deals with three main important correctional topics which are deterrence, rehabilitation, and recidivism. The definition of incarceration is the state of being confined in prison. Not only does incarceration affect people directly by taking away their freedom, but it also affects their lives once their incarceration is served. There is not a whole lot to do about people being incarcerated, however, there may be ways to help the incarcerated once their freedom is restored.

A serious problem with the prison sytem is how often recidivism occurs. A quote from the webisight National Institute of Justice explains what recidivism is “Recidicism is measured by criminal acts that resulted in rearrest, reconvtion, or return to prison” (National Institute of Justice).

Is long-term incarceration working to resolve issues of criminal conduct? When considering the population of people incarcerated is rising at an alarming rate and crime statistics not dropping by much, it is hard to tell if incarceration is working in these modern times. The United States prison population is the largest in the world. In fact, the United States has 2.3 million persons in institutions which is more than the rest of the world combined (Wagner p. 2). Crime overall as decreased in the last 30 years with the introduction of rehabilitation programs but these programs are not universal. While serious crimes require serious punishment, most people that are incarcerated should be

There are about two million inmates in the United States, six hundred thousand are released every year two thirds are rearrested within 3 years. (Chen 2). Figure one from Transitions from Prison To Community; Understanding Orignal Pathways by Visher and Travis also supports the high recidivism rate from Chen statement. Chen also wrote that security level may have a positive correlation with recidivism rate in Do Harsher Prison Conditions Recidivism? This is most likely do to the stricter security levels had worse conditions, longer solitary times and less inmate programs available. Table 2 on page 11 also supports this showing the increased recidivism rates in comparison to high security levels.(Chen 1-11). In 2012 Prop 36 was passed shorting life sentences of non-violent offences sentenced under the 3 Strikes law. Which meant thousands of inmates suddenly released or given reduced sentences however since programs are not available at most facilities to prisoners serving life sentences many were released with very little preparation. Under Prop 36 two thousand one hundred were deemed not dangerous and released but recidivism rate was below 9%. Which is far below the average of 20% this largely due to the support of the team that pushed Prop 36, they helped inmates in finding outside programs and counseling in order to

In 1997, prison sentences were not successful in turning offenders away from crime. Once released from imprisonment around 58 per cent are back in prison within two years of being released due to reconviction and 36

The United States justice system can be described as a cycle, where people enter the prison system, are released, and upon failure to integrate into society soon find themselves back behind bars. Although the means in which the cycle is perpetuated can be argued, the rate of re-offenders is constantly trying to be reduced. One term used to define this type of convict is recidivism, which is the repeat criminal action of a convicted inmate. Recidivism is fastly becoming a issue in the United States as it has been shown that 70% of convicted offenders have been reconvicted within three years of release (Esperian, 2010, p. 322). As crime of any background can be detrimental to society, this high rate of reentry into the justice system has stimulated

with minorities as the majority population of recidivist. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics criminals with longer prison sentences were associated with an increased chance of recidivating. 46.9% of inmates released from prison were re-convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanor within three years of release. This study was an implemented sample study of fifteen states in 1994. In a more recent study the BJS conducted it found that a 67.8% of prisoners were re-arrested within three years of their release. The increase of percentage is because of a broader study and an increase of total prisoners. Despite the nature of the crime the bulk of these criminals, which are being housed together are returning to prison at an accelerated rate. The more punitive the sentencing, the higher a likelihood of recidivism. Blacks and Hispanics are more frequently sentenced in an overly punitive manner. Not only are the black and Hispanic prisoners affected by the sentencing and their reentry to prison but their families and their communities as a whole are affected.

Over many years there has been great debate about whether rehabilitation reduces the rate of recidivism in criminal offenders. There has been great controversy over whether anything works to reduce recidivism and great hope that rehabilitation would offer a reduction in those rates. In this paper I will introduce information and views on the reality of whether rehabilitation does indeed reduce recidivism. Proposed is a quasi-experiment, using a group of offenders that received rehabilitation services and an ex post facto group that did not? I intend to prove that rehabilitation services do

According to “Bureau of Justice Statistics” (2012), ”Recidivism is measured by criminal acts that resulted in the rearrests, reconviction, or return to prison with or without a new sentence during a three-year period following the prisoner's release” (Recidivism, par. 1).