Recidivism rates and economic costs of felon reentry

Felons and the Community Analysis

Within the modern American justice system, there are two legal ways a felon may return to society: parole/early release or completion of sentencing. Parole is a controversial topic, and 16 states have abolished it entirely, with 4 states negating parole for certain offenses. According to the U.S. Justice Department, about 45% of parolees complete their sentence without incident, 38% are returned to prison, and 11% escape or leave the country (Office of Justice Programs, 2013).

Studies also show that there are upwards of 600,000 inmates that are released into communities on an annual basis. However, there are virtually no complete studies that have been systematic, longitudinal and focused on policy for issues involving the political, economic and social consequences of returning tens of thousands of these individuals. The studies that have been done, however, show that there are a number of unfortunate consequences surrounding prisoner release, many collateral damage: increase in child abuse, family violence, homelessness, spread of infectious disease and community discord. One author, writing for the Department of Justice, observed: ". . . implications for public safety and risk management are major factors in re-entry… the phenomenon may affect the socialization of young people, the power of prison sentences to deter, and the future trajectory of crime rates and crime victimization" (Petersilla, 2000).

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Felons Returning to the Community

The increasingly high costs of incarceration rates are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. Even nations that have a substantially larger population have far lower numbers of inmates than the United States. This is largely due to longer prison sentences given, the use of incarceration for relatively minor crimes, and even the political process that pushes legislators to ensure they are not perceived as "soft on crime." In fact, prior to the 1970s, incarceration rates in the U.S. were about 100 per 100,000; by 2007 this number grew to 751 per 100,000, or a move from 1% to 7.5% (Liptak, 2008).

There is also considerable disagreement in the actual recidivism rates. One early study, accounting for about 60% of those prisoners released found that 63% of all convicts released were re-arrested within a three-year period. Further, the study noted that the re-conviction and re-incarceration rates were both higher than 40%. The groups most likely to recidivate were based on age and conviction. Recidivism and age were inversely related (the older the prisoner, the less likely for re-arrest), and prior criminal history (property offenders had higher rates) (Beck & Shipley, 1989).

Economically, the cost of incarceration is huge -- up to $60-70 billion per annum. The cost varies from state to state, but it takes about $30,000 to house and feed each prisoner, or about $80/day (Sleven, 2006). Additionally, these costs are not amortized, because about 70% of those released were rearrested within three years, and over half were back into the prison system. This same study showed that spending more time in prison had little or no effect on recidivism rates in total. The likely explanation for this is that longer the incarceration of the prisoner released the more likely the inability to re-enter society in a productive manner. Thus, the trends in the American penal system suggest that the American prison system is far from a safe environment engendering criminal rehabilitation, or even basic safety. Regardless of one's political views, the mistreatment of adolescents, rape of men and women, and other abuses are certainly beyond the very center of decent behavior from a moral society -- and the lack of oversight and interest in curtailing these issues, instead, leaving them up to the whims of budgets, is something that should be immediately rectified (Project Return - Breaking the Cycle of Crime, 2009).

Recidivism is a serious problem -- and accounts for a significant amount of the current correctional issues (overcrowding, budgets, etc.). There are a number of barriers to entry back into society, and gender and race are high predictors of how serious those barriers will be. Many scholars, in fact, believe that criminal recidivism has a high correlation to psychopathology. With gratification in criminal, sexual or aggressive impulses, this model believes that the criminal cannot learn from the past and must return to the "system" in order to feel comfortable. This, however, assumes incorrectly that most prisoners are suffering from a clear mental illness, when in fact; most (over 51%) are serving time for drug offenses or offenses committed while under the influence of a substance (Guerino, P., et al., 2011).

When looking at the economics of the issues surrounding incarceration, there are a large number of variables present: there is the direct cost of the legal system -- from investigation to trial; incarceration costs; recidivism costs; and costs of rehabilitation or returning to the community. For example, there are roughly five million people either on probation or parole in the U.S. alone. This results in greater caseloads, untrained supervising officials, and more offenders having parole revoked and resent to prison. One hard economic statistic shows that, on average, it costs $80/inmate per day to incarcerate, but only $8/inmate per day for parole. Thus, the figures for the parole or probation population run about $40 million per day or about $14.5 billion dollars per year.

This is not a true economic cost, though, since it represents only the cost to administer parole and probation sentencing; it does not include unemployment, social services, therapy, etc. (Maruschak & Parks, 2012; Smart on Crime, 2012).

Leadership Styles of Stakeholders

There are a large number of stakeholders that have a specific interest in the issues surrounding returning convicted felons to society: law enforcement (local and state/national), public administration, social services, the community, special interest groups, lobbyists, victims and victim families, and the convicted criminal themselves.

Stakeholder

Primary Leadership Style

Analysis/Comments

Law Enforcement

Bureaucratic.

By the nature of the job, there are rules and regulations. "By the book" is the operative style. Useful in creating equity and safety; downside is lack of flexibility, creativity, or innovation.

Public Administration

Bureaucratic

See above

Social Services

Bureaucratic

See above

Community

Transactional

Leadership by transaction or by individual event; can be participatory or autocratic. Positives include role clarification and dividing up performance issues; Downside is perceived lack of personal power and frustration with bureaucracy.

Special Interest Groups

Mixed

Depending on the group styles change; for instance, a victim's rights group would have a different agenda and style than a prisoner's rights or civil liberties group.

Lobbyists

People Oriented

Again, depending on viewpoint, the style would change. By in large, though, lobbyists try to influence opinion and political action. Thus, they are focused on organizing and developing relationships.

Victims / Victim's Families

Transactional and Autocratic

Personality and issue driven; often logic is not a part of this paradigm, and emotions run high. Depending on personalities, may be autocratic and extreme, pushing for efficiency and action; not compromise and debate.

Convict / Convict's Families

Transactional and Autocratic

See above

(Mind Tools, 2012; Murray, 2013; Benincasa, 2012)

Public Administration and Leadership

Often, public administration focuses on ex-offenders as part of the collateral consequences of disenfranchisement, disqualification for some forms of social assistance, or the lack of the ex-offender being part of the democratic process as a whole. For Public Administration, safety is almost always a chief concern. Citizens want to feel safe in their community, want to feel that their children can play in parks and playgrounds, and have a general feeling of "community" without fear of victimization. It is this concern for safety that has led to a higher rate of incarceration over the past several decades. When the public demands higher levels of security, politicians often see the easiest "solution" in imposing harsher and longer sentences for minor crimes and "getting tougher" on rules regarding parole or probation. However, most scholars in the field believe that Public Administration can actually provide a greater leadership role by addressing the high levels of recidivism and providing greater opportunities for the parolee (Dunleavy & Hood, 1994).

Analysis -- Theories, Tools and Practice

Two major theories of public administration, the Niskanen's Maximizing and the Dunleavy Bureau-Shaping theories may operate in congruence or independently with the above approaches. Niskanen's theory holds that rational bureaucrats will always seek to increase their budgets to enhance their organization and thus contribute to state growth and public expenditure. The motivation is thus to find more money to fund programs that are politically appropriate. In the case of felon re-entry, the pendulum has swung in different ways based on the current administration and public value and expectation paradigm. In many cases, the more conservative approach has resulted in considerable cutbacks in rehabilitation and re-entry programs and more funding for law enforcement and punishment (Raadschelders, 2003).

Dunleavy's theory modifies Niskanen, and focuses on the way that bureaucrats only maximize that part of their budget that they spend on their own agency's operations or interest groups. This causes a flow back of benefits, and thus increased attention to that particular theoretical position. For the offender, since the 1980s programs have been de-emphasized so that more funding could be redirected towards the military and other programs that had a more "obvious" benefit to society in the view of the administration. To seek funding for felon re-entry under Dunleavy, officials would need to change policy and procedures so that a preventative stance against recidivism was emphasized as opposed to a more laizze-faire approach to parole or pardon situations within the community (DUnleavy & Carrera, 2013)

Recommendations

From both a policy development paradigm and a public administration focus, it is clear that the system "as is" is flawed. Instead, a more tangible and proactive public administration focus might be a robust reintegration program that uses an educational and motivational technique to gradually train and reintroduce inmates back into regular society.

One program saved taxpayers in the New Orleans area $36 million -- this on $1 million investment into a new style of community reintegration. This program, called Project Return, attempts to break the cycle of recidivism by intervening in community integration, job training, counselling and thorough follow up. The program is a robust way to allow parolees to spend their first few months (60-90 days) in the program before being totally on their own. The components include: 12 hours in GED/Academic coursework; 8.5 hours in Addiction Education, 6.5-hour in computer training; 4.5 hours in Employability training; 4 hours in Communication skills and 2 hours in Community Building, for a total of approximately 36-40 hours. Prior to job placement, each individual is paid $5/hour just to actively participate in the program. The idea is that many of these individuals have dropped out of school, many do not have a GED or equivalent, and need lessons in basic reading, math and writing combined with survival, life and employment skills. There is a significant amount of community building and teaching these individual how to more effectively deal with stress, diversity, integrity, and communication issues. Addition counselling and support groups, combined with needed psychological assistance are core to the program, as is individual counselling and assessment of work skills design to help the individual find gainful employment (Project Return - Breaking the Cycle of Crime, 2009).

If we use Louisiana as a basic case study example, we find that in 2011 they had 15,206 inmates returned to the community. This represents .33% of the population. When one considers cost of pursuit, arrest, arraignment, detainment, trial and incarceration, the cost is about $100,000 per person, or in the 2011 case, about $1.5 billion per inmate, or $330 for every person living in Louisiana. . To put these individuals through a program like BTC, the costs are reduced drastically. From a total of $1.5 billion per inmate to an annual investment of about $1million, or a savings of $35 million per year, even including those to reoffend and return to prison (Project Return). If we extrapolate the savings we would likely find that most states would average a 40-45% savings on their costs of managing parolees and recidivism. If we look at the national figures and use a $14.5 billion/annum average cost, the overall average costs to the system would be $6.5 billion/annum; a considerable sum that could be used to reinvigorate counselling and education programs and perhaps reduce some of the issues surrounding incarceration completely. Thus, instead of continual spending for incarceration, a more deontological approach would be to fund re-entry into society in a positive and productive manner so that the convicted felon could become gainfully employed, pay taxes, and contribute to the community as opposed to being a fiscal and social burden.