PAROLE

IT'S NOT FAIR TO THE REST OF US

• Released prisoners commit 54 times more violent crime within the first year of their release than average citizens do per year.
• The number of crimes by the general public was 539 violent crimes per 100,000 population in 1984.¹
• The number of crimes committed by ex-prisoners within the first year of their release was 29,081 violent crimes per 100,000 released prisoners in 1984.²

This Web Page was updated Feb 7, 2007.

1989 STUDY

• These statistics are derived from the most recent national study of recidivism in the U.S.³  This study tracked 108,580 persons released from prisons in 11 States in 1983, representing more than half of all released State prisoners that year. The study was published in 1989.  A new national study of recidivism was started in 1998, but the results won't be available until 2003. ⁴  UPDATE: The new national study was published in 2002.  The results are similar to this study but show a slightly higher rate of recidivism.⁷   It's available at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/rpr94.htm

NUMBER OF VIOLENT CRIMES COMMITTED AFTER RELEASE

• During the first year after their release, the ex-prisoners in the 1989 study, committed 1,438 homicides, 813 rapes, 1,654 other sexual assaults, 914 kidnappings, 10,748 robberies, 14,259 assaults, and 1,750 other violent crimes.⁵
• The total number of violent crimes they committed during the first year was 31,576.⁵

NUMBER OF VIOLENT CRIMES COMMITTED IN THE PAST

• The released prisoners had been arrested in the past for more than 1.3 million offenses.  Of those, 214,778 were violent crimes, including more than 12,000 homicides, nearly 9,000 rapes, 5,600 kidnappings, and 84,000 robberies. When combined with the number of new rrest charges, these releasees had been arrested and charged with approximately 1.7 million offenses, an average of 15.3 charges each since their first adult arrest.⁶

CONCLUSIONS

• It's not fair to the rest of us to release parolees into society before their sentence is finished -- knowing that released prisoners are 54 times more violent than the general public.  Why should they be allowed to be mixed in with the rest of society? Until a way is found to rehabilitate criminals, or to prevent them from becoming criminals in the first place, the wolves should be kept separated from the sheep as long as possible.

• Criminals should serve the time they were given by the judges and juries that were most familiar with the crimes that were committed (Truth in sentencing).  Parole Boards should not be allowed to give early release to criminals (By the end of 2000, 16 States had abolished discretionary release from prison by a parole board.).  Parole and probation officers should be limited to monitoring ex-prisoners for a period of time after they return to society. 

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FOOTNOTES

(1)  Number of crimes reported to police, and crime rates , U.S. Totals.
Bureau of Justice Statistics spreadsheet
Taken from FBI, Uniform Crime Reports
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/data/stateucr/ucrus.wk1

(2)  The rate of crime for released prisoners during their first year was 29,081 violent crimes per 100,000 releasees.  This is the total shown in footnote 5 below.

(3) Allen J. Beck, Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1983 , U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Washington, D.C., April 1989 (Acrobat Reader required). It's also at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/rpr83.htm  
This is the most recent national study of post prison recidivism conducted by BJS.  It followed for 3 years a sample of offenders drawn to represent over 108,000 prisoners discharged from prisons in 11 States in 1983.

(4) In 1998, with funding from the OJP Corrections Program Office and the FBI, the BJS started the first national follow-up study of prisoners in 16 years. The study will develop a sample of State prison releases with over sampling of violent offenders, particularly those offenders convicted of sexual assault crimes and crimes against children.  Follow-ups would be carried out through State and Federal criminal history records for 3 years.  Methods to be used for carrying out the proposed 1998 recidivism study will be far superior to those employed in the 1983 study due to the substantial improvements that have been made in the criminal history records infrastructure under the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) and other Federal initiatives.

(5)  This Table shows the actual number of crimes committed by the 108,000 released prisoners within the first year and within three years.  These figures are the actual number of crimes committed, not the rate per 100,000.

 The number of violent crimes committed within 3 years, shown in column 2 above, is taken from Table 3 of the 1989 recidivism study (footnote 3 above).

The number of violent crimes committed within 1 year, shown in column 1 above, is estimated to be 63% of the three year figures.  This estimate is derived from Table 2 of the 1989 recidivism study, which shows that the percent of all released PRISONERS rearrested within 1 year was 39.3%, and the percent rearrested within 3 years was 62.5%.  Therefore the percent of the PRISONERS that were arrested within 3 years that were arrested within 1 year is 39.3 divided by 62.5, or 63%.  This figure represents the percent of released PRISONERS that were rearrested, and is used to estimate the percent of CRIMES that were committed by them.  So the estimated number of crimes committed by released prisoners in column 1 was calculated by taking 63% of the figures in column 2.

(6)  From page 3 of the 1989 recidivism study (footnote 3 above).

(7) The new study showed slightly higher recidivism rates.  The new study is shown in this chart as the 1994 study.  It tracked prisoners released in 1994 for three years until 1997.  The study was published in 2002.

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