While several states across the country have reported lower recidivism rates this year — meaning fewer convicted criminals being re-arrested after leaving prison — it can be hard to compare just how well they are doing, because there is a wide variation in how states define recidivism, how they collect data, and how they present it to the public, Governing reports.
“You have to be very, very careful. You have to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges,” Charis Kubrin, a criminology, law and society professor at the University of California, Irvine, said in an interview with Stateline.
Recidivism statistics measure the number of offenders who are rearrested within a certain time frame, typically one to five years, and are used to assess a correction system's performance, including the effectiveness of reentry and probation programs.
Several of the states that have reported lower recidivism rates over the last several years — including Iowa, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia — have pointed to reentry or other rehabilitative programs as part of the reason.
“These programs make a huge difference,” said Scott Richeson, the Virginia Department of Corrections’ deputy director of programs, education and reentry, in an interview with Stateline.
But some criminologists argue that attributing lower recidivism rates to a specific program fails to consider other influencing factors, such as population shifts and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. And while most states measure recidivism by tracking released inmates who return to prison within three years, there is no national standard, making it difficult to compare jurisdictions and specific programs.
Different studies define reoffending differently. Some studies consider violating parole, being arrested, being convicted of a crime, or returning to prison all as recidivism. Others count only one or two. Some states only define felonies as recidivism, and states vary in how they categorize crimes as felonies or misdemeanors.
Elsa Chen, a professor and the chair of the political science department at Santa Clara University, said state officials should specify how the rate was calculated, what type of offenses or acts count as recidivism, potential limitations, such as incomplete data, and the frequency of reoffenses.
While politicians will point to lower recidivism rates as an indicator of increased public safety, some experts say that’s not a good measure.
“It can have harmful effects on public understanding because the public believes they’re being told something by a responsible person that directly assesses public safety, and [recidivism] does not measure public safety,” Jeffrey Butts, a research professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Stateline.
Some argue that recidivism isn’t even the best measure for assessing the impact of programs, and instead states should look more closely at things like housing and employment.
“Recidivism by itself is not a true measure of the success of reentry programming or of incarceration rates,” said Ann Fisher, the executive director of Virginia CARES, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated people in Virginia. “It’s just not a true picture.”