Bureau of Justice Statistics

CJA/335

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Criminal history data from state record repositories and the FBI are collected by The Bureau of Justice Statistics to study the recidivism patterns of numerous offenders. These offenders include but are not limited to persons discharged from prison or who are on probation. According to “Recidivism” (2015), “the latest study estimated the patterns of recidivism or approximately 400,000 individuals’ releases from state penitentiaries in 30 states in 2005”. According to the “Bureau of Justice Statistics” (2015) website “due to changes in the demographic characteristics and criminal histories of the U.S. prison population and various other factors, these findings from the 2005 study cannot directly be compared to those from previous Bureau of Justice Statistics” (About this Topic). In addition to the recidivism statistics, the Bureau of Justice Statistics collects administrative data through Annual Surveys of Parole and Probation to study the rate at which criminals are at risk of being imprisoned for a new offense or for violating conditions of their parole or probation.

The recidivism Survey of Felons on Probation has data available between 1986 and 1989. This one time survey is now inactive and it provided national estimates of the recidivism rate of offenders sentenced to probation in these years. Included in the survey were samples of felons who were convicted and placed on probations. These felons were tracked for approximately three years and data was collected on the percentage of them who were reimprisoned, rearrested, or reconvicted for new crimes committed within the three years that they were tracked for. The different recidivism measures were based on their criminal history records which were maintained by the states they were in.

There was another study conducted on the Recidivism of State Prisoners. The status of this survey is active and its frequency is the years of 1983, 1994, and 2005. The latest data available if from 2005. The Bureau of Justice Statistics uses the criminal history record of offenders to study the amount and various crime types that are committed by states prisoners. This study is conducted to retrieve information from prior to them being released from prison and after they are released. The first study was conducted in 1983. It tracked state prisoners who were released in 11 states in this year. The second study was conducted in 1944 and it tracked a sample of state prisoners released in 15 different states in this year. There was a 3 year follow up period for both studies. The latest study was in 2005 which followed a sample of prisoners released from state prison in 30 years. This study had a 5 year follow up period instead of a 3 year follow up period. Documented in these studies were convictions of these offenders, arrests and incarceration experiences that was encountered by the former inmates inside and outside of the state that they were released from.

The states which were included in the 2005 study was selected for this prisoner recidivism study based on whether or not they were able to provide the prisoner records and the state or FBI identification number on individuals who were released from state correctional facilities in 2005. Estimated from this study was the recidivism pattern of 404,638 individuals released in this year from state prisons in 30 different states. These states made up 76% of the U.S. population in 2005. There was a sample of inmates released in this year which was developed for each of the 30 states using data that was reported by state departments of corrections and sent to the Bureau of Justice’s National Corrections Reporting Program. After this was done, there was a final sample of 68,597 individuals. Supplied by the departments of corrections was the state and FBI identification numbers of the offenders and it was used by the Bureau of Justice Statistics to collect criminal history records that were national on the sample of former prisoners.

According to “Recidivism” (2015), “given the changes in the characteristics of the U.S. prison population, an increase in the number of states participating in the study, and improvements made to the nation’s criminal history records since the mid-1990s, direct comparisons of the recidivism estimates from the study on prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 should not be compared to those from the previous BJS prisoner recidivism studies” (Changes Over Time).

References

Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=227