Year: 2009
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: America's growing prison population has led to an increasing number of released offenders.The high rates of offenders returning to prison after their release, whether through revocation of parole or new criminal behavior, have renewed interest in explanations of recidivism.While researchers have focused on individual level crime theory and characteristics to explain recidivism, one neglected area of study is neighborhood context's role in recidivism.This is odd because much recent research has endeavored to establish the link between context and crime.The experiences of recently released offenders offer ample evidence that neighborhood context would logically influence recidivism, or the return to criminality, in much the same way as for other criminality, if not more.The few examples of research that attempts to address this gap also fail to incorporate the fact that recently released offenders are likely a highly mobile population, something that could cause error in contextual analysis.This dissertation attempts to add to the knowledge of contextual effects on recidivism while improving on previously used methods.Using a unique dataset of released offenders in Ohio that contains serial residence and violation information, this project tests a social disorganization model of recidivism, while also analyzing mobility patterns.A third analysis uses a unique property of the dataset: the fact that it includes prisoners sentenced under indeterminate and determinate sentencing guidelines.
Author: Christopher M. Huggins
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1499519952