Talk:Recidivism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is supported by the Sociology WikiProject, which gives a central approach to Sociology and related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article Recidivism, or visit the project page for more details on the projects.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Measurement of recidivism by sexual offenders is a "catch me if you can" endeavor, since offenders know their honed deception abilities assure they face a very low likelihood that their sexual abuse episodes will be detected or reported. Polygraph testing (see reports by Mrs. Cory Jewell-Jensen and separately by Dr. Anna Salter from their pedophile panel research) show even in treatment the offenders are highly unlikely to be truthful about their reoffending, especially if its disclosure is not self-serving. Law Enforcement, Corrections, and Parole authorities who are charged with minimizing recidivism, have a built-in incentive to keep the definition vague and to allocate scarce investigation resources elsewhere. (dallburn@SafeHarborResources.org July 13, 2005)

• As reported on BBC Radio 4 on 2 September 2005, the United States of America has a 60% recidivism rate, whereas the UK has a 50% recidivism rate. The UK attributes its lower recidivism rate to its focus on rehabilitation and education of prisoners as opposed to the US focus more on punishment, deterent and keeping potentially dangerous individuals away from society. - Recidivism in regards to what? Drugs? Alcohol? Sexual assault? This paragraph should specify. -Branddobbe 19:41, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't know in this instance, but recividism rates (which are general, like these ones are - not specifically about drug/sex/violence) usually refer to one of two options: the percent of all released prisoners that are rearrested or the percent that return to prison. 60% seems on the low side for a lifetime prediction, so I'm guessing that these are reincarceration rates (although it's easy enough to monkey around with statistics - recidivism is more often specified in terms of "within X years" since we don't know, e.g., how many prisoners released in 2000 will recidivate within 10 years). Long story short, someone should get the transcript or use more reliable figures (US DOJ and UK equivalent)--69.162.60.87 03:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)