How To Reduce Recidivism In Prisons

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Federal prisons in the United States became a weapon of choice in the fight against crime more than four decades ago. However, they didn’t know how to stop this cycle of recidivism. Within three years of release, more than four out of every ten inmates return to prison, increasing population and driving up costs.

However, the Federal Bureau of Prisons in the United States uses effective reforms intended to minimize the tendency of a convicted criminal to re-offend and end up behind bars. States are implementing evidence-based policies, including risk assessment, fiscal incentives, and certain sanctions.

What Programs Can Reduce Recidivism Rates?

States now spend billions annually on corrections, but they can reduce recidivism and save money with these programs. These strategies focus on every inmate’s activity from the initial intake in prison up to their release back to society.

Simple education can significantly help reduce the criminal relapse rate by allowing inmates to finish their high school diplomas, pursue other technical and trading skills. Here are some of the programs that are proven to work and reinforce public safety:

Risk Assessment

Once an offender is incarcerated, they have to pass through an ongoing individualization assessment to identify their specific needs. The prison staff will follow up the evaluations upon their release to determine whether their interventions were effective.

Matching offenders with programs is very crucial. Research exhibits that targeting risk factors with effective programs can cut re-offending by up to 30 percent.

The Last Mile

The Last Mile (TLM) was established out of San Quentin State Prison in California in 2010 to provide programs that result in successful re-entry and reduce recidivism. In 2014 The Last Mile launched code 7370, the first software development training program in the United States Prisons.

These programs help the incarcerated populations to unlock their potentials and break the cycle of recidivism. At the last mile, they believe in three principles:

We are much more than our worst decisions
We all have redeemable qualities
Finding and getting a job is vital to break the cycle of recidivism

The last mile is a non-profit program providing technology training to the incarcerated and, at the same time, are at the highest wage in any U.S prison at $17 an hour. Upon their release, the offenders can return to their communities with enough savings, a working portfolio, and marketable 21st-century coding skills.

However, apart from reducing recidivism, the most valuable asset offenders gain from the last mile is hope for a better future.

Evidence-Based Programs

These programs are scientifically implemented in several jurisdictions and are likely to guarantee low levels of recidivism. However, evidence-based programs exhibit excellent outcomes when incorporated with other forms of treatment-based programs.

Here are four basic principles of evidence-based practices:

Risk principle: a risk assessment is required to determine what the criminogenic factors are of an offender.
Need principle: once you determine the criminogenic factors, you need to address them.
Responsivity principle: different programs work better for some offenders as opposed to others.
Program fidelity principle: the outcomes you will get from evidence-based programs are only accomplished if the programs are implemented and delivered adhering to the jurisdiction.

Swift and Certain Sanctions

This is another strategy demonstrating success to deal with probationers who test positive for drugs and substance use and break other rules. Studies show that hope seems to work out for those who wind behind bars. They respond to that and make better choices.

Hope participants are 55 percent less likely to be arrested than other probationers for a new crime. These sanctions help improve substance abuse treatment while the offender is still in prison. The best approach is to intervene earlier when the inmate is in the prison environment. Upon release, the support from volunteers should continue when the individual is back to society.

Fiscal Incentives

Financial incentives are proving to be a powerful tool in reducing the tendency of an offender to re-offend. According to the 2009 law, local governments get money back from the state if they cut down the number of probationer failures they sent to prison.

States can save millions of dollars and use them to expand programs that hold offenders accountable, helping them succeed.

What Are the Effects of Prison or Jail Sentences on Recidivism?

The effect of incarceration and the length of time served on recidivism is crucial to public safety and the cost of putting up with offenders in prison. Opinions are categorized into those standing up for longer sentencing terms in the interest of public safety and those supporting shorter sentences with speculations that longer sentences will not reduce recidivism.

Effects of incarceration sentencing terms on recidivism depend on the offender’s mindset. There is no likelihood that more extended conviction might reduce recidivism or not of some offenders. Also, early release of the offender from prison does not guarantee reducing or increasing recidivism rates.

Here are three reasons for those standing up for more extended periods of incarceration will reduce crime and recidivism rates:

The offender cannot re-offend against the public while still incarcerated.
Long periods of incarceration discourage offenders from committing additional crimes upon release.
The awareness of general deterrence discourages potential offenders from committing other crimes.

Those that advocates shorter sentences claim that:

Assurance of punishment is more paramount than the duration of punishment in preventing offenders from repeating the same offense.
Most of the offenders commit crimes due to physical obsessions, limited life choices, literacy efforts, are in dire need of treatment programs, and job training contracting to long periods of conviction.
Prison is a school for criminals, those who are apprehended end up being more sophisticated and more entrenched criminals.

How You Can Volunteer to Help Reduce Recidivism

You can help the convicts prepare for successful re-entry back into society. Feel free to share your knowledge and time with offenders behind bars for better futures when they come outside.

When incarcerated individuals are released from prison through the Residential Reentry Centers (RRCs), they must adjust to life in society. The first thing is to find employment. Some participants play a vital and devoted role in making this happen.

The volunteers should be mentors and counselors who should provide a positive difference to the lives of the offenders by sharing their skills, time, and knowledge. If you are willing to make a difference in your community and reduce recidivism be ready to help offenders in different areas of concern, including:

Education, vocational, and technical training.
Mental wellness and health support.
General business and literacy education.
English as a second language.
Alcoholic and substance abuse anonymous support groups.
Re-entry preparations into society.

What Are the Biggest Challenges in Reducing Recidivism

There are many reasons as to why released parolees and prisoners wind back in prison. The challenges range from mental health problems to economic status as they try to rejoin others. Here are some of the primary difficulties prisoners face trying to avoid relapse rates to prison:

Lack of Re-Entry Programs After Incarceration

The challenge of trying to help an inmate avoid recidivism begins behind bars before release or parole. Every year at least six hundred thousand Americans are released from prison. Unfortunately, two-thirds of them are re-arrested on new charges within three years. The general education programs, vocational and training programs available at the correctional facilities do not guarantee that the inmate will get a job when they are released.

If the parolee experience these, there is a likelihood they are going to re-offend. The United States criminal justice system, together with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, should make sure such a population is given much attention to helping uncover these pitfalls as they try to integrate with others in the society.

What should these re-entry programs look like?

Allow the inmates to join Cognitive Behavior Treatments voluntarily (CBT).
Re-entry coaches should work together with inmates to develop participant-led action plans toiled to their unique needs.

Lack of Job Opportunities to Ex-Prisoners

About 50% of Americans leaving custody are likely to re-offend within three years as they struggle to gain employment. Businesses aren’t willing to take risks hiring ex-prisoners which is a contributing factor to recidivism.

If ex-prisoners cannot fend for themselves, housing becomes a problem too. Most of these businesses and online applications often have a checkbox to overlook those with a criminal record. But if you talk to employers that have hired them, you will find many of them have turned their lives around and are productive, law-abiding citizens.

Employers should step over these limiting factors by giving ex-convicts a chance for employment. Since most of these offenders cannot run away from their past criminal offenses, they have learned life lessons, and all they want is a chance for a better life.

One-Size-Fits-All Approach

One size approach doesn’t fit at all as it demonstrates how damaging it can be to treat all offenders from different backgrounds and experiences in the same way. However, the same interventions might be very effective at reducing recidivism among those most likely to re-offend but have no best impact on those less likely to re-offend and might bring in the worst recidivism rates.

In 2002, a study conducted by researchers Christopher Lewin Camp and Edward Lettuce in Ohio provided evidence that demonstrated how harmful this approach could be. The study was the largest ever conducted of community-based correctional treatment facilities.

The researchers placed a total of 13,221 offenders in one of 38 halfway units and 15 community-based correctional treatment facilities throughout the state of Ohio. They conducted a two-year follow-up on all offenders looking at relapse rates in new arrests, which never reduced at any point of their research. This type of research is currently held across geographic locations and types of events.

Post-Incarceration Syndrome

Studies show that the longer an inmate’s conviction, the more likely an inmate can experience post-traumatic stress disorder. These post-incarceration syndromes include alienation, social-sensory disorientation, social traits like mistrust & withdrawal, and anxiety.

However, inmates with post-traumatic stress disorders can handle this intense battle if volunteers and coaches give them proper mental and health support.

Conclusion

The practice of offender rehabilitation has hit a wall for decades as there is no significant impact on the lives of prisoners and ex-prisoners. Studies have been coordinated to understand what is and what isn’t working in prison reentry programs. Most of these programs don’t work. It turns out most of the prisoners do better with less intervention.

Could it be that no treatment is the most effective remedy? We don’t know that. However, the effectiveness of no treatment is revealing. The personal motivation of those returning from prison is what leads them to recovery, reducing relapse rates.

Too much treatment at the wrong time with wrong services can make prisoners feel helpless instead of capable. If you want to know what works, start with success stories of criminals who have been through the system and gotten out, which is the study of resistance from crime.

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