Recidivism Nearly Universal

Power Line links to a Peter Kirsanow article for National Review concerning the FIRST STEP legislation currently dividing GOP legislators. See what Kirsanow writes about releasing convicted criminals.

Pessimism about the likelihood of recidivism is supported by a recently-released Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) study that tracked the recidivism of state prisoners for 9 years. (snip) These prisoners came from 30 states that collectively accounted for 77% of the state prisoners released in 2005. The recidivism figures are nothing less than astonishing: by the end of the 9-year period, 83 percent of the released prisoners had been re-arrested. “The 401,299 state prisoners released in 2005 had an estimated 1,994,000 arrests during the 9-year period, an average of 5 arrests per released prisoner. Sixty percent of these arrests occurred during years 4 through 9.”

Upon release, convicted felons are highly unlikely to avoid further episodes of criminal behavior. Letting them out early, as FIRST STEP proposes to do, will lead to more crime and more victims. It is bad policy which shouldn’t be enacted.