Research

Research on Criminal Justice
We are presently involved in doing research on a variety of topics of interest to the York Chapter. Visit here often for updates on what we've found out.

Meeting Schedule for Prison Board:

From the National Institute of Corrections:
The latest recidivism data released in June 2002 found that 67 percent of state prisoners released in 1994 were charged with new crimes within three years (Lanagan and Levin 2002).

The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit Washington, D.C. organization, said, “The decreasing emphasis on prison programs intended to provide skills training and counseling for prisoners for their eventual reentry into the community is leaving released inmates largely unprepared to successfully reintegrate into society.”

A study by Harer (1994) found that inmates who secured employment in preparation of their release recidivated at a lower rate (27.6 percent) than those who did not secure employment (53.9 percent).

An unemployed ex-offender is three times more likely to return to prison (Eisenberg 1990).

Research suggests that the most frequent recidivists commit crimes with economic motives. The recidivism study released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2002 shows that the economic crimes of robbery, burglary, larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft, fraud, stolen property, and drug trafficking account for 59.9% of the total crime committed by recidivists.

A 1996 study in New York State showed that 89 percent of parole and probation violators were unemployed at the time of re-arrest (State of New York Department of Labor 1996).

Research conducted in Texas showed that 74% of ex-offenders claim employment is their number one post-release issue (Texas Department of Criminal Justice 1990).

A meta-analysis of different programs aimed at reducing recidivism showed that employment programs for offenders and ex-offenders had the best success at 35 percent (Lipsy 1995).

Lifetime Ban on Welfare Benefits Lifted

“One in four families is attempting to cope with an addicted member, while the costs of untreated addiction exceed $400 billion annually, according to the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment…Lehigh Country spends 47 cents of every dollar in county mortgage taxes collected on the prison system…Pennsylvania’s incarceration costs are growing faster than our neighboring states’ while crime rates fall nationally…Treatment saves lives, and studies done on the efficacy of treatment show that there is a return on investment of many multiples of the dollars spent. Unfortunately, due to the budget situation in Harrisburg, 52 treatment programs have closed across the state since June…Unless the Legislature acts soon, much of the remaining treatment system will be lost…The fact is, the cost benefit of treatment is so great that the successes more than pay for the effort. Recovery works. Nearly every day, I hear success stories…”[1]

“Saying the get-tough prison policies have failed to prevent repeat offenders, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced a shift toward correctional rehabilitation, proposing programs to educate inmates and improve their behavior…The state will fill 218 correctional officer vacancies with 210 teachers, counselors, and social workers, Saar said…’To my mind, if we don’t go in this direction, then we are just wasting out money in cycling these inmates through,’ Saar said during a press conference…The proposal plan would provide quadruple drug treatment for Maryland inmates over the next three years, from 552 inmates to more than 2,500 inmates receiving drug treatment. Adult basic education classes offering remedial reading, vocational training and other courses would increase by 1,550 inmates over three years to almost 1,800 inmates. The program’s most innovative aspect would be 5,220 inmates each year in a new behavioral modification program, a 12-week course focused on teaching inmates to deal with conflict and real-life problems…A study of U.S. prison populations he coauthored this year found behavioral modification programs reduced the rate of repeat offences by 15 percentage points. They also reduced cases of prison misconduct by a fourth…According to Maryland Department of Corrections, about half of the state’s released inmates end up back in prison within three years, a problem magnified by the rapid growth in inmate populations.”[2]

“The New York State court system has released one of the most comprehensive statewide analyses of drug treatment court efficacy ever published. The report, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and produced by the Center for Court Innovation, found that New York drug courts had reduced recidivism by an average of nearly 32 percent…The study is an in-depth, multi-site statistical analysis of drug court programs, which link non-violent, addicted offenders to judicially-monitored drug treatment instead of incarceration. The evaluation is the first in the nation to demonstrate a meaningful reduction in recidivism consistently across a large number of sites over a long-term tracking period…the court system estimates that taxpayer savings have totaled an excess of $254 million. These projections are based on savings in incarceration alone, which amount to an average of $14,053 per drug court participant, not even including other cost-savings associated with an addict becoming sober, such as reductions from foster care, welfare, and other social services…They discovered that participants in court-mandated treatment stay in treatment longer than those who seek treatment voluntarily: after one year, over 60 percent of the participants in the 11 drug courts studied were found to have either successfully completed their treatment programs or to be continuing in treatment, compared to a random sampling of in-patient treatment programs nationwide which showed only 10 to 30 percent who completed or were continuing treatment…the study found an average decline in recidivism of 31.7 percent for drug court participants…Studies of drug courts in other states, including Maryland, Oregon, Florida, and California, echo these findings. ‘It is a startling fact,’ said New York Chief Judge Judith Kaye, ‘that almost half of this state’s prison population are serving time for a drug offense…’…This finding reiterates one of the main premises of drug treatment courts – namely, that legal coercion greatly increases the chances that an addict will remain in and successfully complete treatment – further supporting the effectiveness of drug courts in breaking the cycle of criminality and addiction.”[3]

“Between 600,00 and a million prisoners are being released each year… ‘94 percent of people will get out of prison.’ Only 6 percent are serving life sentences. A three state study in the Midwest indicates that accredited post-secondary education for prisoners reduces recidivism and increases employability. For every dollar so invested, society gets a return of two dollars…Eighty percent of Michigan inmates enter prison without having graduated from high school. Two-thirds of prisoners nationwide lack a high school diploma, and most have few job skills. ‘Without an education or job skills, and the stigma of prison, they’re not going to go very far’…For some inmates, prison college is the only contact with the outside world, and involvement in this alternative community of students reduces recidivism…Education is a way to develop a sense of self-efficacy and accomplishment.”[4]

“Hogar Crea uses addicts to treat addicts. Regulators say treatment must be provided by certified counselors, and gave the state’s 700 treatment centers three years to comply. Hogar Crea never did. In 2002, it lost its license, and the loss of government referrals followed. Hogar Crea’s defenders say it is being treated unfairly. They say its methods work. They may not be the methods of ‘the establishment,’ but ‘street smarts’ are the only way to get through to hard-drug addicts.”[5]

“On an average day in 2000, more than 10 percent of all black American men in their 20s were either in prison or in jail. Most of them had very little schooling. About one in three black male high-school dropouts were behind bars. A black man reaching his early 30s was nearly twice as likely to have a prison record than to hold a bachelor’s degree. And young black men with no college education were more than twice as likely to have been to prison than to have served in the military…for black men with low levels of education, imprisonment for two years or more has indeed become commonplace…Black men are seven to eight times more likely to go to prison or jail than white men…Research shows that spending time in prison reduces the wages of ex-inmates by 10 percent to 15 percent. Men coming out of prison typically find only temporary or casual jobs that offer few opportunities for promotion or building skills. They may be lured away from honest jobs by the promise of easy cash from selling drugs or committing other crimes. Ex-inmates also talk about the difficulties of adjusting to life on the outside, particularly in the first days and weeks after release; the self-reliance needed for the daily demands of getting to work and following the directions of supervisors can be difficult for those used to the rigid rules of prison…82 percent of employers say that they would hire a welfare recipient, but only 33 percent would hire an ex-convict…Men without steady jobs are unappealing marriage partners…A survey of poor parents from the Fragile Families Study showed that going to prison or jail reduced the likelihood of cohabitation or marriage by about one-quarter – even after factoring out the effects of drug use and violence, education and the level of conflict in the marriage…Given that marriage and employment are so important for rehabilitation, it is striking that incarceration is now being found to reduce wages and increase the risks of divorce and separation. Not only are ex-inmates re-entering society with the deficits that drew them into crime, the experience of incarceration itself is undermining the supports of job and family that are critical for going straight…Joan Petersilia, a leading scholar of parole, writes that ‘parole officers in most large urban areas are now more surveillance-than-services-oriented, and drug testing, electronic monitoring, and verifying curfews are the most common activities of many parole agents.’ Nonprofit organizations increasingly serve the needs of ex-prisoners…The criminal-justice system can help ex-prisoners return to society by planning for housing and employment before release or by forgiving minor infractions among parolees. But authorities’ support for rehabilitation has declined as budgets for drug treatment, employment and training have shrunk and parole supervision has become more punitive. A small but important exception to this trend is New York’s Community and Law Enforcement Resources Together program (ComALERT)…’Joe’ Hynes has promoted rehabilitation through employment as a way of improving public safety in Brooklyn’s poor, high-crime neighborhoods…More recently, his office established a program of treatment and community supervision, as an alternative to incarceration, for nonviolent drug offenders…Gatling reports that there are now about 150 community organizations throughout Brooklyn working with comALERT, providing services to crime-involved youth, drug offenders and ex-offenders leaving prison…program parolees who enroll with the Doe Fund, a welfare-to-work organization, are employed in street cleaning and other low-skill jobs for $5.50 to $6.50 an hour. These jobs can’t provide economic independence, but they do allow ex-inmates to build work histories and experience with continuous employment. The Doe Fund also provides released prisoners with about a year of room, board, and drug treatment immediately after release. Doe Fund participants also contribute to a savings program that pays several thousand dollars when the program is completed. These benefits are coupled with a strict curfew and drug-testing regimen…the program offers apprenticeship to ex-prisoners with high school diplomas. The apprenticeships can ultimately lead to a steady employment in union jobs that pay well…The first contact between comALERT caseworkers and offenders comes in prison during a prerelease interview…Some were enthusiastic about guaranteed jobs and housing outside the city shelter system, but others were wary of leaving prison only to enter a residential facility governed by strict drug and alcohol testing…Because resources are tight, comALERT has not been systematically evaluated, but its results appear extremely promising. Gatling reports that after one year, about 16 percent of Brooklyn parolees are rearrested, while recidivism among comALERT parolees is just 6.6 percent. Over three years, 41 percent of parolees in Brooklyn commit new crimes compared with less than 17 percent among comALERT participants. ComALERT is also cheap. Right now it costs just the salary of one full-time social worker and a fraction of the time of one prosecutor…Gatling explains that comALERT’s success is due largely to the links that the program builds between corrections, police and parole on one side and community-service organizations on the other…’We are ex-offenders’ social capital. We supply what they never had in the community.’ At a time when support for rehabilitative programs is weak and parole supervision has become more punitive, the problems of prisoner re-entry have gained new urgency…in The Public Interest in 1974, Martinson concluded that ‘with few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so far have no appreciable effect on recidivism.’ While Martinson’s review included some important qualifications, the idea that criminals could not be reformed became conventional wisdom…But recent renewed interest in prisoner re-entry lead some researchers back to the old studies of rehabilitation. Christopher Uggen re-examined the National Supported Work Demonstration, this time dividing the program participants into two groups: offenders under 27 and offenders 27 and over. Uggen found that supported employment significantly reduced recidivism among older men. He writes, ‘In contrast to the stylized cultural image of the ‘hardened criminal’ these results suggest that older offenders are more amenable to employment interventions than younger offenders.’ Some researchers argue that older men are more motivated to get back on track than young ones, who remain strongly involved with their crime-involved peers. Uggen’s findings suggest that re-entry programs that provide jobs can reduce crime, but the results are best for those who are highly motivated to make a change. Like the older men in Uggen’s analysis, many of the comALERT participants are self-selected and motivated to succeed…ComALERT focuses on those who will most likely respond well to treatment and transitional employment. Even if only the most motivated and able ex-offenders join the program, the reductions in recidivism are substantial…Today only a small fraction of Brooklyn parolees go through comALERT, and a $4.5 million grant for the program was cut as NYC fell into financial trouble. Without a significant infusion of funds, it remains unclear if the program can operate effectively on a large scale. New research and the experience of re-entry organizations like comALERT show that disadvantaged communities need social investments, not just intensive policing, to absorb the large numbers of men returning home from penal institutions. Prisoner re-entry programs offer a way to confine and separate them but to reintegrate them through expanded opportunity – and to increase public safety in the process. Such programs offer a way to get smart, rather than tough, on crime.”[6]

“Southern Nevada law enforcement and mental health officials want to start a special court to deal with mentally ill offenders, who have among the highest recidivism rates and are crowding local jails. ‘A mental health court could be an effective way of getting people out of the cycle of re-offending simply because their conditions have gone untreated,’ said Kathryn Landreth, chairwoman of the Southern Nevada Mental Health Coalition. ‘Right now, the seriously mentally ill who go untreated have an inordinate impact on our justice system.’ Many mentally ill offenders are homeless and often are arrested for minor offenses such as trespassing, destroying property, prostitution or disturbing the peace. Historically, these offenders have been held in jail and released, only to be rearrested later for the same crimes…Mentally ill offenders must voluntarily agree to enter the mental health court program…If the offenders choose not to participate in the specialty court program, their cases proceed through the regular criminal justice system, where they would receive whatever fines or jail time the regular judges deem appropriate…Of the 32 mentally ill offenders who went to the special court, only five has their probation revoked, Leslie said. She said a case study of six offenders showed that since they began participating in mental health court, the number of nights they spent in jail fell from an average of 50 nights each in 2001 to 22 nights each in 2002.”[7]

“The report released yesterday by former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph A. Califano Jr. said that even repeat offenders have far lower recidivism rates and higher employment rates if they are dealt with through Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison (DTAP) rather than prison… ‘Prosecutors can help repeat felony offenders become responsible citizens if they combine treatment and vocational training with the certainty of punishment for noncompliance’… Analysts found that DTAP graduates were 33 percent less likely o be re-arrested, 45 percent less likely to be reconvicted and 87 percent less likely to return to prison than offenders who were not part of the program. It also showed that DTAP participants, who face the threat of a lengthy and possibly a life sentence if they fail, are six times more likely to complete the program than offenders placed in other residential treatment…According to the report, DTAP costs an average of about $33,000 per successful participant, while it costs an average of $64,338 for the time spent in prison by DTAP dropouts.”[8]

“The most recent statistics show that nearly two-thirds of convicts will be re-arrested after their release, and of those, almost half will return to prison for committing a new crime…But much of the treatment, or much of what is considered treatment, is treatment in name only and does not incorporate what are the known principles of effective intervention…I would caution and add that when you talk about recidivism, that there are many different ways to measure that…Under current ways of operating prisons, we tend not to be responsible in our operations. In other words, we move inmates around. We are building thousand-bed prisons, 5,000-bed prisons, which makes it virtually impossible to deal on an individual basis. So the very things that we have done, perhaps to save money, have caused, really, a deterioration in the hope that the system can work…We have to work together on this. You can’t – and that’s what the problem has been. Everybody has been working with their own little box, whether it’s the warden or the parole board member or the parole officer on the street or the mental health service delivery person. Everybody’s working independently of one another, and there has been very little communication between all of us…Absolutely. And I think that Mr. Lombardi brigns up a very, very good point in that in Missouri, and other states as well, but, fortunately for someone in my position, Missouri, the criminal behavior is being viewed as a very – well, the complex thing that it is. There are many, many factors that are brought to bear when you talk about changing someone’s behavior. One point, real briefly, I’d like to make is the realization or the recognition at least that the criminal behavior is just that. It is behavior and it’s behavior that has been reinforced over in many cases 20, 30, 40 years of someone’s life. The criminal justice system and, more specifically, any state correctional system only has an offender for, by comparison in most cases, a very short period of time. Changing their behavior for good in that short time frame is an extremely tall order, and it takes the integration of all the social service agencies, as Mr. Lombardi mentioned; it takes everyone being brought to the table; it takes everyone having an understanding of where criminal behavior comes from and what it takes to change that behavior. It is, indeed, a systemic issue, and that’s why I sort of reared back against pointing the finger at any one particular person or, for that matter, any one particular agency…But it was found that unless there was a significant follow-up with the individuals who came out of those programs, their failure rate was exactly the same as if they’d never had a - or the same as people that never had the program in the same way…We now have mandatory education legislation in Missouri so that everybody who does not have a high school diploma or a GED must be enrolled in education while they’re in prison. And we are now finding that those people who get their GED while they’re in prison are much more successful than those that do not when they leave…We went into prison and asked the inmates what are some of the issues that they want to discuss and have information about. And as a result od what they told us, we brought in professionals to talk to them about child abuse, spouse abuse, sexual abuse, anger management, conflict resolution, forgiveness…And the recidivism rates for inmates who are involved in this program is 23 percent. And when inmates get transferred to other correctional facilities, the first thing they request of the warden is to please initiate the program there. And so the program has now spread to six correctional facilities in the state of Kansas…there’s nothing inherently wrong with using offenders to run programs, but the research tends to show that it’s very important to also have outside professionals who are trained in the specific area that that program is trying to treat be involved in an advisory capacity as well as being directly involved as well…if there was one program that you could say, ‘Alright, let’s try that,’ what would it be? Well I wouldn’t pick one particular program, but rather a type of program, and that would be, without questions, more resources need to be put into the cognitive behavioral curriculum, the programs that specifically address anti-social thinking, anti-social thoughts and attitudes that, in turn, relate to many other areas, including criminal behavior, but also drug and alcohol use and abuse and things of that nature. More and more, the research is showing that programs that, at their core, have a cognitive behavioral curriculum at the heart of their programming stand a much better chance of being effective in the long term.”[9]

“The state Youth Services Division will collect prison records to learn if youths recently released from state custody fall back into crime and eventually into prison…Youth services officials have only known how many youths in their institutions are repeat offenders. Of the states more than 13,000 adult inmates, as many as half have some sort of juvenile record, one prison official said. Tracking post-childhood criminal behavior can help youth services officials determine the best way to use their limited resources for treatment and reform, said Melissa Sickmund of the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh… ‘On the juvenile side, maybe much more so than on the adult side, the goal is to fix the kid so they don’t come back.’ … ‘Most states don’t really track [youths] into the adult system because they aren’t able to because of their computer system or other things. So if Arkansas is doing that, it’s a good thing.’ …Texas’ juvenile recidivism rate is down from recent years, and while it’s difficult to pinpoint why, Jeffords said the length of sentences may be a factor. A stay in juvenile custody has increased from nine months to 19 months, Jeffords said. The extra time allows for more treatment, officials say…Besides treatment programs, successful intervention includes getting kids involved in community services and helping them face their crimes from a victim’s point of view, Sickmund said.”[10]

“The numbers, in a Focus page article by Tulsa World higher-education writer Omer Gillham, are compelling: the recidivism rater for prison inmates who earn a two-year degree while behind bars is 2 percent. The overall rate of return to jail is 26.2 percent…It seems like a good formula: Increase college course offerings for inmates and expect not to see them behind bars again. The reality is that probably less than half that prison population would be eligible for college courses. Sixty percent of inmates, in fact, enter the system with lower than an 8^th grade education. But even for them, earning a GED – or high school equivalency diploma – offers than a better chance. Those inmates earning a GED have a recidivism rate of 20 percent…Of 487 women who have completed two-year degree programs or college work at Eddie Warrior since 1997, only eight women have returned to prison. Such low recidivism rates are similar for male inmates taking college courses at Jess Dunn. ‘College work in prison does something for them. It changes them.’ …Prison inmates completing CareerTech programs in computers, business and technical education have lower recidivism rates as well. Inmates must have a possible five-year release date from prison to qualify for federal funding for school…Oklahoma’s college prison programs were funded by $357,785 in federal funds this year. Federal money for college prison courses is well spent since it costs tax payers $19,533 per year to house an inmate compared to a few thousand dollars for tuition and books…About 90 percent of Oklahoma’s inmates will get out of prison at some point. Offering them educational opportunities – the more the better – is a cheap way to help ensure they won’t be back.”[11]

“In only a few years, the Bucks County prison system went from a highly regarded and progressive institution to one troubled by drugs and a sex scandal…Garb and DiMascio don’t rule out lax security as a factor in the problems, but say other factors are also at work. Larger numbers of state prisoners, many with longer sentences and more street-wise backgrounds, are entering the county system – and a larger-than-ever female population housed in the same cellblock as male prisoners invited problems, they said…In 1964, Bucks County opened a work-release center for minimum security inmates, the first in the nation to be completely separate from a main prison. A new state-of-the-art facility opened in 1985 and became one of the first in Pennsylvania to institute ‘direct supervision’ – placing correctional officers inside inmates’ living units without bars or monitors.”[12]

[1] Stauffer, William. “Addiction’s costs make recovery a sound investment.” Morning Call, A7. September 8, 2003. Accessed at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/printdoc on 2/24/04.

[2] “Maryland prisons to focus on education, rehabilitation programs; Basic education, drug programs expanded to reduce recidivism.” Correctional Educational Bulletin. Vol. 7, No. 3, November 24, 2003. Accessed at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/printdoc on 2/24/07.

[3] “Drug courts reduce recidivism by 32 percent.” The Daily Record of Rochester. November 14, 2003. Accessed at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/printdoc.

[4] “Analysis: Prison education cuts recidivism.” United Press International. September 10, 2003. Accessed at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/printdoc.

[5] “Drug and Alcohol Treatment: Hogar Crea’s system is flawed, but Pennsylvania still needs it.” The Morning Call. November 5, 2003

[6] “Lawful re-entry: In Brooklyn, a novel program is reducing recidivism and finding ex-offenders decent jobs. The real surprise is who’s running it: a social worker hired by the district attorney’s office.” The American Prospect. December 2003.

[7] Casey, Juliet V. “Jail Alternative: Special Court Backed.” Las Vegas Review-Journal. December 24, 2002.

[8] Caher, John. “New Report Boosts Hynes’ Drug Program.” New York Law Journal. March 12, 2003.

[9] Conan, Neal: anchor. “Role of prison wardens in reducing recidivism.” Talk of the Nation – NPR. June 3, 2003.

[10] Shurley, Traci. “Youth services to check prisons for alumni tracking recidivism rates to help state officials evaluate treatment programs.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. September 20, 2003.

[11] “Inmate ed.” Tulsa World. October 22, 2003.

[12] Loviglio, Joann. “Rash of problems tarnish respected reputation of Bucks prison.” The Associated Press State and Local Wire. February 8, 2002.

Lifetime Ban on Welfare Benefits Lifted

Pennsylvania Prison Population Tops 70,000