abstract: Recidivism occurs when an individual is released from prison and then, through a violation of parole or a new offense, ends up back in prison. Durose and colleagues (2014) cite that 55.4% of individuals go back to prison after a five-year post release. Considerable attention has been focused on reducing the cycle of these individuals going back to prison. One of the attempts to remedy this issue is through offering pre-release programs for prison inmates. These programs seek to provide individuals skills that will reduce their likelihood of reoffending. But existing research shows that the effectiveness of these programs is limited. Moreover, few attempts have been made to look at differences between individual’s dosage of program participation. This thesis aims to determine if participation in a pre-release program reduces recidivism. Using data from the state’s Department of Corrections, there is a comparison of previously imprisoned individuals who participated in a pre-release employment program and those who declined participation, to understand if participation influences recidivism. Additionally, dosage of the center will be analyzed to determine whether length of program participation influenced recidivism. Participating in the program and a longer dose of the program should allow more time for the individual to learn the material and fully absorb what the program is offering such as skills and training. The results show that participation in the pre-release employment program did not significantly affect recidivism as individuals who went through the program were no less likely to be reincarcerated. In addition, a longer dosage of the program did not significantly influence recidivism among those who went through the program. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Criminology and Criminal Justice 2019

ABSTRACT This study explored the perceived needs of ex-offenders. Empirical research reports that individuals who have been incarcerated are at risk of recidivism. This study used a qualitative research design and the data was collected from in-depth interviews with ten participants. The study found that lack of income and education has impacted the number of individuals who are failing to successfully reintegrate into society. This study also revealed that the lack of employment, housing, community resources, correctional rehabilitation, and vocational training have the ability to challenge successful reintegration. This study recommends that an increase in transitional services be rendered to ex-offends, as policy and practice. The types of services that the study recommends implementing are first, a greater amount of employment counseling and second, an increase in linkage between the ex-offends and support services in the ex-offender’s areas of need. It is recommended that there is further research of successful outcomes.

Since the founding of the juvenile justice system, minimal attention or research effort has been contributed to the understanding of factors affecting the rates of juvenile arrests, detainment, and return to community. Over time, studies have seen juvenile recidivism rise and fall. Counties and states do not keep solid empirical data on recidivism because minors are constantly reentering juvenile detention centers. States and counties only keep compacted empirical data on arrest of minors. It makes it hard for counties and states to differentiate who has been arrested multiply times. The following study investigates the juvenile justice and questions the rehabilitative function and ability of the system. Various methods of rehabilitation have been used and have been deemed null or effective. If certain practices have been deemed ineffective, are they still in practice, and why? Also, if other practices have been deemed effective in rehabilitation, at what rates are they being used and why? Studies that have focused on the contributing factors of youth at risk of recidivating or becoming offenders have birthed interventions that could potentially decrease juvenile recidivism significantly. This study will look into those interventions and analyze the results. Multisystemic therapy, as well as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been deemed valid therapy methods that have impacts on juvenile recidivism. We will delve into the science of juvenile detention and society’s efforts on decreasing rates of incarceration as well as recidivism.

Many adolescents with substance use disorders have ongoing problems with abuse and/or dependence throughout their lives. Little research has been conducted examining the differences among adolescents who do and do not continue to have difficulties. This study compared adolescents who recidivate versus those who do not recidivate after receiving treatment for substance abuse. Adolescents were compared on four categories of variables: (a) demographic variables, (c) delinquency /substance use history, ( c) social/educational support, and ( d) treatment history. It was found that the most powerful predictors of recidivism within these categories were criminal history severity, age at intake, and treatment completion. The implication of this finding is discussed. It may be possible in the future for treatment providers to identify adolescents most at risk for recidivism, as these teens should perhaps receive more intensive treatment, a different type of treatment, and/or more intensive monitoring during and after treatment.

In a wide range of counselling situations, including those involving offenders, researchers have bemoaned the lack of consensus about outcome. Some researchers have argued that a lack of consensus is due to the fact that the different sources retain unique points of view, which can never be amalgamated into a common outcome. The current paper argues that, while sources will have their own unique perspective, it is possible to develop a meaningful consensus, if it is done very carefully. The factors which need to be taken into consideration are: measuring different outcomes; the different interpretation of the question by each source; and bias. An important outcome in correctional settings is an offender's current level of criminality, or likelihood of reoffending. It was hypothesised that the 12 Probation and Parole Officers' predictions about the likelihood of recidivism of 368 offenders would correlate with fresh charges recorded within 12 months by the Magistrates Court. This hypothesis was supported. It was also hypothesised that the Level of Service Inventory - Revised (LSI-R) would also correlate with fresh charges and that the former correlation would be different to the latter. While the LSI-R did correlate significantly with fresh charges, the predictions of the Probation and Parole Officers were not significantly different. The use of correlation coefficients to assess predictive validity has been criticised as they are affected by base rates of offending and selection ratios of offenders to high and low risk categories. However when a more appropriate statistical tool, the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (ROC) was employed, the results were not substantially different. The predictive abilities of offenders was also tested against the same criterion and Intersource Agreement on the Prediction Recidivism were found sorely wanting, failing to correlate with fresh charges or any of the other predictive measures. It is argued that the offenders failed to predict accurately because of bias and/or poor ability to predict their own behaviour. The ability of the Probation and Parole Officers to predict reoffending to a much greater level than usually recorded in the criminological literature was ascribed to the higher level of information about their own predictive abilities, through a natural feedback mechanism which does not usually apply to professionals making clinical predictions about recidivism, and to training in predictors of reoffending which they received when they were trained in the administration of the LSI-R. It was also found that the ability of the LSI-R to predict recidivism was improved by incorporating offender age through linear regression. Suggestions were made for improving consensus among sources in counselling outcome studies. In particular, it was noted that sources do not necessarily interpret the question in the manner the researcher desires and it may be necessary to test the subjects' ability to distinguish between similar questions when this distinction is important.

Thesis (M.S.)--Youngstown State University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-124). Also available via the World Wide Web in PDF format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-234). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

No description available.

Violent and aggressive behavior is a subset of antisocial behavior that is of particular concern to the criminal justice system and to the general public. A challenge facing mental health professionals and the criminal justice system is to assess—with a reasonable degree of accuracy—the likelihood that a young offender will recidivate and to arrange appropriate interventions. Because of its psychometric properties and high predictive validity, the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is being incorporated into risk assessment batteries for use with adults. The purpose of the study was to extend the risk paradigm to adolescent offenders, investigating the predictive validity of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) from adolescence to adulthood. Subjects were 157 admissions, ages 12-18, referred to Youth Court Services for psychological or psychiatric assessment. Archival data were used to complete retrospectively the PCL:YV and to code criminal history and demographic data on each of the subjects. Follow-up criminal record data were collected, with an average follow-up time of ten years. Over the follow-up period psychopaths demonstrated a greater risk for committing violent offences than nonpsychopaths. They committed violent offences at a higher rate, earlier following their release from custody, and were more likely to escape from custody than nonpsychopaths. Further, results indicate that PCL:YV score, a difference in performance - verbal intellectual functioning (P > V Index), and history of self-harm contributed significantly to the prediction of violent outcome, over and above the contribution of a combination of criminal-history and demographic variables. Finally, background and demographic characteristics were compared between violent and nonviolent psychopaths. Findings are discussed in the context of current conceptualizations of psychopathy and adolescent antisocial behavior.