Recidivism is another important aspect of overcrowded prisons. According to Ryan Mack, sixty three percent of prisoners return within three years of release from prison. This has a dramatic effect on the ability of our prisons and jails to reduce inmate populations, leading to continuous growth in our prisons. If 63% of our prisoners are simply caught in a revolving door act with prisons, it is no wonder that we have such a overburdened prison system. Given the other policies and tendencies of our Criminal Justice System, our recidivism numbers only exacerbate the problem, ensuring that we keep most of those we lock up for their lives.
A Wisconsin Sentencing Commission released a comprehensive report on how best to curb recidivism and what factors to take into account when doing so. Their findings suggested that when considering a sentence, there are three factors that need to be taken into account, those being: Objectives, Facts, and Effectiveness.
What is the goal of the sentence? If it’s a drug offender, it might be to stop his addiction problem and turn him into a productive member of society. If it’s a violent sex offender, it might be to keep the community safe, considering the needs of society over the needs of the individual. Is the goal of the sentence that is being imposed to punish? Or is it to rehabilitate? Or is it to incapacitate and deter? Consider that our objective for one offender may not be the same as another. If we are dealing with a murderer, we might simply impose a sentence as a punishment for taking another human’s life, rather then to rehabilitate them. Murderers are rather unlikely to reoffend statistically (CDCR), but that doesn’t mean we should simply let them go, they need to face a serious punishment for such a serious crime.
What are the facts of the case and the offender? Semmann suggests crafting sentences customized to each offender and his or her traits. He suggests “One possible strategy to develop an effective sentence is to predict who is likely to re-offend based on some quantity of recidivistic factors”. Semmann also cautions to take into account both aggregate facts and individual facts. In other words, judges need to take into account the unique information of the case in front of them, but also consider what the statistics say of other similar offenders and their propensity to re-offend. In some ways, the courts already do this, with their different specialized courts.
It is suggested in the same report by Semmann that we do not have enough information to determine what exactly is most effective for each offender in regards to sentencing options. Semmann quotes a Judge Michael Marcus who states “sentences are selected more on perceptions of sentences intuitively fitting a crime rather than on evidence that a given sentence has been proven to be successful at preventing future crimes.” Marcus goes on to state “we send thieves to theft talk, drunk drivers to alcohol treatment, bullies to anger counseling, addicts to drug treatment, and sex offenders to sex offender treatment… as a matter of symmetry rather than of science.” Marcus is saying that while these different treatments sound like a good idea in theory, that we do not have enough scientific backing to make the case that they are actually effective in curbing the wrongful behavior.
Finally Semmann and the Wisconsin Sentencing Commission have some suggestions on how to reduce recidivism: Continue to study traits specific to repeat offender groups; consider aggregate factors when sentencing; research new and different sentences; create uniform offender I.D. system for all state justice partners; expand information collected on sentencing guidelines worksheets; create system to identify and track sentence effectiveness; and to consider all three sentencing elements (Objectives, Facts, and Effectiveness) as one to reduce recidivism.
How are we to find the answer to such a serious problem if we do not have the necessary data to inform us? Like other facets of the Criminal Justice System, Corrections has been prone to this phenomenon of simply guessing that a program would work and implementing it before studying the results it would achieve.
Ultimately, the Wisconsin Sentencing Commission is suggesting that we need to collect far more data to determine how to effectively deal with recidivism. I believe that the Wisconsin Sentencing Commission has stumbled onto a rather large problem and have hit the nail on the head. We need to conduct more studies on what works and what doesn’t with reentry programs, with halfway houses, with all those programs aimed at reducing recidivism until we find something that is truly successful at reducing recidivism rates.
Sources: Mack, R. (2009). The Optimum October Fight Against Recidivism. Accessed March 21st, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-mack/the-optimum-october-fight_b_323483.html
Semmann, S. (2006). Three Critical Sentencing Elements Reduce Recidivism: A Comparison Between Robbers and Other Offenders. Accessed March 21st, 2010. http://wsc.wi.gov/docview.asp?docid=6679
Office of Research, CDCR (2007). Untitled. Accessed March 21st, 2010. http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Annual/RECID2/RECID2d2004.pdf
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