Corrections_Today_September_October_2020_Vol.82_No.5

Recidivism

I n the field of corrections, re- often graded. 1 While it is convenient to use this metric to push forward or kill various correctional initiatives, programs and policies, recidivism can easily conceal as much as it re- veals. Given the backdrop of prison overcrowding, measuring simple returns to prison and comparing the differences between various post- prison release options may fail to adequately show important outcome differences. Accounting for the total number of prison days and total financial costs of release options may better exhibit the impact on a prison system. The Wyoming Department of Corrections (WDOC) prison sys- tem is currently over capacity. As of October 31 st , 2019, 172 inmates were being housed in out-of-state contracted facilities or in-state con- tracted jail facilities. Understanding the drivers of overcrowding and exploring potential policy and pro- gram options is a top priority among state administrators and elected officials. 2 This article explores the three major pathways of post- prison release available in Wyoming (half-way house, street parole, and no supervision) and examines how these options impact the WDOC relative to return-to-prison (tradi- tional recidivism), total prison days, and total cost. Wyoming’s three privately oper- ated Adult Community Corrections facilities (ACCs) serve as halfway house work release programs for inmates who are within two years of their parole eligibility date and who qualify for and are accepted cidivism is the standard by which criminal justice programs are

into the program. The ACCs require off-site employment, on-site supervi- sion (when not otherwise engaged in employment, programming, or spe- cific authorized absence), substance abuse testing, and an on-site housing curfew at night. Inmates who do not qualify or choose to apply for the ACC work release program must wait for parole eligibility to dis- charge from prison pending approval from the parole board. Street parole, although varying in supervision lev- els depending upon circumstances, is typified by lower levels of supervi- sion and restriction than the ACCs to include private residential accommo- dations. Others who do not qualify for parole or who voluntarily waive parole participation (the predominant mechanism among this group) must serve their full minimum sentence in prison, with any reductions for good behavior included. Those who com- plete their sentence in prison (a.k.a. sentence jammers) are released to the community without WDOC supervision. The Data The primary data utilized for this article comes from the Wyoming Corrections Information System (WCIS) database. Discharges in this study focus on first-time WDOC inmates discharging from prison for the first time from fiscal years 2010 through 2015. Inmates who graduated from Wyoming’s Boot Camp, were returned to the custody of another state’s prison system, or who discharged to a detainer were excluded from the analysis. Return to prison data include any return to a Wyoming prison within

Accounting for the total number of prison days and total financial costs of release options may better exhibit

the impact on a prison system.

1,095 days (or three years) subse- quent to discharge. Prison days are captured from initial prison intake through the three-year period after first release. Prison and post-prison supervision cost information is pro- vided by the Wyoming Department of Corrections Central Services Division fiscal unit. To accurately calculate total supervision costs, post-prison supervision days while at an ACC or while on street parole are captured by data provided to the WDOC by the three ACCs and from the Connectrex Monitor database (the primary parole and proba- tion case management database in Wyoming). Table 1 shows the three-year return to prison rates by supervision status immediately after prison exit among first-time WDOC inmates. Overall, 29% of discharged first- time inmates included in this study returned to prison within three years. Among the three groups shown in the table, those released without supervision had the lowest Recidivism results

Illustration opposite page: istock/KeithBishop

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