The recidivism of prisoners released for the first time: reconsidering the effectiveness question

Abstract

This article describes the recidivism of 16,381 prisoners released from Western Australian Prisons between June 30 1975 and June 30 1987. Probabilities of ultimately returning to prison were estimated at 0.45, 0.76, 0.36 and 0.69 for male non-Aborigines, male Aborigines, female non-Aborigines and female Aborigines, respectively. A declining trend in recidivism over the period 1975–1980 was found to have levelled off from 1981–1985. These trends were related to important alterations in the definitions of the law, particularly to the decriminalisation of drunkenness and the introduction of mandatory prison for repeat offences of drunk driving. Recidivism also varied significantly with other demographic and institutional factors. Recidivism in this study was defined as a return to WA prisons for any offence, but varying definitions by deletion of fine defaulters made only minor differences to the estimated proportions returning.