The primary purpose of this study was to determine if the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections' 100 hour pre-release program and vocational education had a significant impact on offender recidivism. Additionally, a model of predicating offender recidivism using demographic data was another aspect of the study. Offenders in the…

Both desistance research and strengths-based approaches to offender rehabilitation suggest that attempts to reduce sex offender recidivism should attend to an offender's release environment. Recent research has demonstrated that better quality release planning is associated with reduced recidivism; however, whether release planning contributes…

Research has consistently revealed that released offenders, if unemployed and uneducated, would likely become recidivist offenders. This study was a 5-year follow-up study (2005-2009) of 6,561 offenders who were released from the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) to five metropolitan counties during the calendar year 2005. It examined the…

Studies that compare recidivism rates between parolees and unconditionally released inmates typically attach these statuses upon release, and then follow these groups until they either fail or meet the censor date. However, this method of identifying former inmates as parolees does not comport with how parolees are conceptualized by the agencies…

The "Delinquency Reduction Outcome Profile" ("DROP") is a novel situational-judgment test (SJT) designed to measure social decision making in delinquent youth. The DROP includes both a typical SJT scoring method, which captures the deviation of an individual response from an "ideal" expert-based response pattern, as well as a novel…

The Violence Risk Scale (VRS) uses ratings of static and dynamic risk predictors to assess violence risk, identify targets for treatment, and assess changes in risk following treatment. The VRS was rated pre- and posttreatment on a sample of 150 males, mostly high-risk violent offenders many with psychopathic personality traits. These individuals…

This study examined factors influencing clinician predictions of recidivism for juvenile offenders, including youth age at initial juvenile justice system involvement, youth age at discharge, program completion status, clinician perception of strength of the therapeutic relationship, and clinician perception of youth commitment to treatment.…

Given the rates of reincarceration in the United States, it is important to understand criminal justice risk and protective factors. Hope is a potentially important factor with two components-agency (goal-directed determination) and pathways (planning to meet goals; Snyder et al., 1991). We conducted a secondary data analysis (n = 45) of a…

Sixty youth (16-19 years) from two youth prison sites participate in a prospective study examining criminal offending and learning disabilities (LD), completing measures of estimated IQ, attention, reading, and mathematical and oral language abilities. Prevalence rates of LDs exceed those of international studies, with 91.67% of the offenders…

This study addresses the phenomenon of inmates voluntarily forgoing parole supervision and opting to remain in prison until the maximum expiration of their sentence. The research was conducted to inform public policy makers about the potential repercussions of this decision-making process and to help guide future policy and legislative proposals…

There has been relatively little research on the degree to which measures of lifetime history of substance abuse add to the prediction of risk based on actuarial measures alone among sexual offenders. This issue is of relevance in that a history of substance abuse is related to relapse to substance using behavior. Furthermore, substance use has…

Establishing college-degree programs for prison inmates is an evidence-based effective instructional strategy in reducing recidivism. Evaluating academic arenas as a resource to improve behavior and levels of functioning within correctional facilities is a necessary component of inmate academic programs. The purpose of this quantitative,…

An intensive case management treatment program for mentally ill offenders (MIOs) is outlined, and subsequent recidivism of participants is evaluated. Features of the program and its development are discussed. Sixty-four (64) participants released from state prison between 1998 and 2003 were matched with a group of MIOs released earlier on eight…

Juvenile offenders are costly to our society in terms of the monetary and social expenditures from the legal system, victims' person costs, and incarceration. The re-entry and community reintegration outcomes for formerly incarcerated youth with a disabling condition are bleak compared to peers without disabilities. In this study, we examined the…

This study of recidivism among Washington supermax prisoners used a retrospective matched control design, matching supermax prisoners one-to-one with nonsupermax prisoners on mental illness status and up to eight recidivism predictors. Supermax prisoners committed new felonies at a higher rate than nonsupermax controls, but the difference was not…