Objective: Legitimacy-based approaches to crime prevention operate under the assumption that individuals — including violent offenders — are more likely to comply with the law when they believe that the law and its agents are legitimate and act in ways that seem inherently “fair” and “just.” While mounting evidence finds an association between such legitimacy-based programs and reductions in aggregate levels of crime and violence, no study has investigated whether such programs influence individual offending.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of one such program — Project Safe Neighborhoods’ PSN Offender Notification Meetings — at reducing individual recidivism among a population of returning prisoners in Chicago.

Methods: This study uses a quasi-experimental design and two types of survival analyses Cox hazard models and competing risk models to evaluate the effects of PSN on the subsequent recidivism of program participants relative to the control group.

Results: Cox hazard models and competing risk models suggest that involvement in PSN significantly reduces the risk of subsequent incarceration. In fact, participation in PSN Offender Notification Forums is associated with a significant lengthening of the time that offenders remain on the street and out of prison.

Conclusion: This study provides some of the first individual-level evidence of the efficacy of such programs on patterns of individual offending. Results suggest that interventions such as these do indeed reduce rates of recidivism in the treatment group.Number of Pages in PDF File: 40Keywords: legitimacy, recidivism, Project Safe NeighborhoodsAccepted Paper Series

via Desistance and Legitimacy: The Impact of Offender Notification Meetings on Recidivism Among High Risk Offenders by Andrew V. Papachristos, Danielle M. Wallace, Tracey L. Meares, Jeffrey Fagan :: SSRN.

These are undoubtedly fine ideas, but they will never solve the fundamental problem of California’s prisons. To do that, Governor Brown and his administration will have to confront the state’s recidivism problem: too many people are released from California’s prisons, return home and then proceed to commit new crimes or violate parole rules. Before long, they are back in prison.

California has the second highest rate of recidivism in the country, according to the Pew Center on the States. Nearly 58 percent of the state’s offenders are sent back to prison within three years of their release, according to the Pew Center.

Unless this cycle is broken with bold actions — unless people can be diverted from a lifetime of crime, repeatedly shuttling into and out of prison — California will remain stuck trying to jam too many inmates into too few prison cells. This pattern carries enormous costs, both human and financial.

via Harriet McDonald: California’s Recidivism Problem.

Still, there remains a misconception that realignment transfers felons from state to county incarceration or releases them early. According to a fact sheet from the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, under AB 109 “newly convicted low-level offenders without current or prior serious or violent offenses stay in county jail to serve their sentence; this has reduced the annual admissions (to state prison) to less than 35,000 a year. Prior to realignment, there were approximately 55,000 to 65,000 new admissions from county courts to state prison.”

According to the state report, since AB 109 went into effect, no offenders have received an early release from state prison, and post-realignment recidivism has actually decreased.

via Chico News & Review – Realignment results – News – Local Stories – May 30, 2013.

Quietly, the Utah Republican has worked Washington’s back channels for 18 months to forge bipartisan support. He insists the program — vetted by the Heritage Foundation and the ACLU — would reduce recidivism, lower crime rates and rein in spending on the federal prison system.

“There’s some really good work being done by states that we ought to learn from,” Chaffetz told The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board this week. “It’s a financial imperative, it’s a moral imperative — it just makes a lot of sense.”

via Chaffetz unveils prison program to reduce recidivism and lower crime | The Salt Lake Tribune.

Federal budget cuts, a spike in gun violence and the state’s financial instability all threaten recent progress in the reduction of Illinois’ juvenile recidivism rates.

In an effort to reduce cost while keeping youth out of the detention cycle, and in contrast to the tough laws of the 1980s and 1990s, more emphasis is being placed on programs that function as alternatives to and a transition out of the penal system.

In Illinois juvenile offenders are almost as likely to be re-incarcerated as to stay out of the system, despite a new study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation​​, showing that youth incarcerations have dropped in every region of the United States,​ according tomultiple reports.

Data from the Illinois Executive Budgets for Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014 shows that re-incarceration rates in Illinois Youth Centers fell from 56.9 percent in Fiscal Year 2009 to 45.8 percent three years later.

Goldman Sachs has bet $9.6 million over four years that the Osborne Association, a prison reform organization, can reduce teen recidivism by providing a CBT program for incarcerated youth at Riker’s Island. According to Alicia Glen of Goldman Sachs, if the program cuts teen recidivism by 10 percent, then Goldman gets its original investment back. If the program cuts recidivism between 10 and 20 percent, then Goldman gets its capital plus a return that caps out at $2.1 million. For improvements below 10 percent, Goldman Sachs gets nothing back from the city’s budget.

In a sense, the city has nothing to lose. Experts estimate that cutting teen re-arrests by 20 percent will save the City of New York approximately $20 million. Of course, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s private foundation will give Goldman Sachs 75 percent of its capital back even if the programs fail to meet their goals. Many municipalities don’t have the luxury of backing up SIBs with the mayor’s private wealth.

via How Goldman Sachs Wants to Decrease Teen Recidivism at Riker’s Island.

Because of her felony conviction, Janice will almost certainly never be allowed to work as a nurse again, so she needs some kind of vocational training to prepare her for an alternate career when she is released. But as a female prisoner in the state of New Hampshire, vocational training and other vital services like drug treatment and mental healthcare for women prisoners are little more than a joke.

Janice is one of four female prisoners who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit that was recently filed against the state claiming unequal treatment of incarcerated women compared to their male counterparts. The suit, which is seeking certification as a class action lawsuit on behalf of all women prisoners in the state, alleges that the state has failed to comply with a 1992 court order to provide services to women prisoners on parity with their male counterparts.

Discrimination against women in prison keeps them going back | Sadhbh Walshe | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

It worked.

A new study shows 42 percent of Brooklyn Park teens are now participating in some kind of after-school or summer programming. The city has also witnessed a 39 percent drop in juvenile crime, and city leaders say that’s no coincidence.

The city launched a war on teenage boredom and, after years of cuts, the City Council opened its pocketbook for youth programs. They hired more staff, created more youth programming and threw open the doors to the Zanewood Recreation Center.

It worked.

A new study shows 42 percent of Brooklyn Park teens are now participating in some kind of after-school or summer programming. The city has also witnessed a 39 percent drop in juvenile crime, and city leaders say that’s no coincidence.

via Brooklyn Park rec programs help to slash youth crime | StarTribune.com.

In August, the monitor found mental health care in the county’s two jails was still in shambles. Among the problems: Vacancies in top medical positions left jailers to make medical decisions, such as when an inmate should be removed from suicide watch. A man who had threatened to kill himself stopped eating and drinking for four days and was never taken to a hospital. He died in his cell.

Mental health care thin at county jails | Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune | wisconsinrapidstribune.com.

EXCERPT: Added Police Chief Smith: “There are departments throughout the country, especially police departments, that had big concerns about this initiative, and we were among them.”

But the philosophy of catching juveniles early and not putting first-time suspects in detention along with felons who have an established criminal history appeals to Smith.

Some friction remains. Juveniles arrested on bench warrants are not automatically locked up. Runaways – even those from out-of-state – are not held without a warrant.

The bottom line, according to Eugene Polyak, commander of the St. Paul Police Department’s juvenile unit: “As we look at juvenile crime patterns, it’s down….We’re implementing the (risk assessment), we’re not holding some of these kids on lower-level offenses and as a result we’re not seeing an increase in juvenile crime.

FULL ARTICLE: Ramsey County: Locking up fewer kids, and so far, less crime – TwinCities.com.