Recidivism Rates

The Bureau of Justice Statistics released the following data about our prison system:

• 3 in 4 former prisoners go back to jail within 5 years
• Sentence lengths have only gone up in the past 15 years

http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17

CBS also ran a piece on Recidivism:

• 82% of property offenders arrested for another crime
• 77% drug offenders
• 74% of public order offenders
• 71% violent offenders

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/once-a-criminal-always-a-criminal/

What does this data tell us? It shows that our prison system does not actually rehabilitate inmates. If we have 3 out of every 4 inmates coming back to jail within five years then we have a major problem. If we instead focused on rehabilitation then we would save money and have less crowded prisons, even if it meant putting more money into it right now. As of right now, we are wasting money by having people go to jail over and over again.