Recidivism

The concept of recidivism is central to understanding the criminal process, the operation of the criminal justice system, and evaluative research on correctional effectiveness. Generally, the concept of recidivism refers to criminal reoffending, but it is often unclear whether it applies to committing the same crime or a new crime. The confusion is not remedied by consulting various dictionaries. One online dictionary http://Dictionary.com informs us that the word means “repeated or habitual relapse,” but other sources, such as the Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, defines the word as “a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior,” a definition similar to that found in another online dictionary, http://TheFreeDicionary.com, which defines recidivism as “a tendency to recidivate.” Surely the term tendency has limited scientific use in this context, and its meaning is vague at best.

The word recidivism can refer to a variety of habitual behaviors, such as the consumption of alcohol or drugs and repeated antisocial conduct, including crime. What becomes murky is whether an alcoholic who starts using opiates is a recidivist or whether someone who commits a burglary and then a robbery is a recidivist. Perhaps it does not matter, because in either case the individual has not stopped using drugs or committing crime. However, a clear definition would be helpful.

This much is clear: Recidivism refers to committing a crime again; beyond this uninformative notion are matters of both measurement and meaning. Let us start with meaning. A criminology textbook from about 50 years ago, by Richard R. Korn and Lloyd W. McCorkle, states the following:

The calculation of recidivism rates has been a mainstay of criminologists for decades. It would be a mistake, however, to think that we know what those figures mean. Some think they mean that people who return to crime are “failures” of some correctional program or are criminals who have not been caught and “corrected.” Such conclusions, however, are undoubtedly incorrect.

We know that recidivism rates are higher from maximum security prisons than from medium, minimum, or camp prisons. According to Michael D. Maltz, recidivism rates of inmates are also higher than those of probationers. This makes sense, because higher-risk offenders are sent to prison, whereas lower-risk offenders are assigned to supervised release in the community.

Many studies have considered this issue. Some of them have been from government agencies, some from private sources. According to a study by Patrick A. Langan and David J. Levin for the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics published in 2002, 67 percent of inmates released from state prisons committed at least one additional serious crime within three years of release. There were, to be sure, [Page 372]substantial differences in recidivism among inmates. Car thieves, burglars, and larcenists had the highest recidivism rates (about 70 percent), while rapists (2.5 percent) and murderers (1.2 percent) had the lowest rates. Other studies of either state or federal prisons, such as one by Daniel Glaser in 1964, have reported slightly different figures, and it is not the intent of this article to review all pertinent studies to ascertain the “real” recidivism rates. For the sake of argument, however, it can be agreed that at least half of inmates released from prison have a good chance of being considered recidivists.

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