Most Ex-Inmates Arrested Within Three Years of Release, Says New Federal Study

From The Crime Report, April 22

An estimated two-thirds of prisoners released in 2005 were arrested for a new crime within three years, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics said today in the first major federal study of recidivism in nearly two decades.

More than three-quarters (77 percent) were arrested within five years.

The study covers 405,000 prisoners released by 30 states in 2005. More than one-third (37 percent) were arrested within six months of their release from prison, and more than half (57 percent) were arrested by the end of the first year. That corresponds with earlier research indicating that the highest chances of rearrest are soon after a prison release.
 

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Local homicide rate increases cause more elementary students to fail school

WASHINGTON, DC, April 16, 2014 — A new study finds that an increase in a municipality's homicide rate causes more elementary school students in that community to fail a grade than would do so if the rate remained stable.

"This finding is a source of concern because exposure to environmental violence is highly prevalent in contemporary societies and is unequally distributed along socioeconomic lines," said study co-author Florencia Torche, an associate professor of sociology at New York University. "To the extent that children living in poverty are more likely to experience environmental violence, its effect on early educational achievement will contribute to the intergenerational reproduction of poverty."

Titled, "Exposure to Local Homicides and Early Educational Achievement in Mexico," the study, which appears in the April issue of Sociology of Education, relies on data on all elementary schools in Mexico from 1990 to 2010 merged with the annual homicide rate in the municipality where each school is located.

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& the full study available here.

Opinion: Employing Former Felons Will Improve the Economy and Public Safety

Excerpt from Pacific Standard - April 7

Lawmakers in 10 states and over 50 cities have already enacted Ban the Box policies, eliminating the check-box that asks about an applicant’s criminal record. It’s time for Congress to follow suit.

Seven years ago, I hired Ron Sanders, an unemployed, single dad with a felony record, to work in a community health center. Like the majority of those who are incarcerated, Ron had been addicted to drugs and homeless. But even when those days were long over and he had completed a college certificate program to become a community health worker, he still couldn’t get a job. He couldn’t even get an interview.

An overwhelming 65 million Americans with criminal records face significant barriers to employment each day. Most applications for employment include a box that asks, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” Check the box, and nowadays, the application most likely goes to the trash. In 2009, a team of Princeton and Harvard researchers found that having a criminal record in New York city reduced the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50 percent. It doesn’t matter if you finished serving your time, committed a crime decades ago, or whether the crime would impact the quality of your work.

Read the rest, here.