Scarlet Letters and Recidivism: Does an Old Criminal Record Predict Future Offending

2005

ABSTRACT
Research Summary: This research explores the issue of old prior records and their ability to predict future offending. In particular, we are interested in the question of whether, after a given period of time, the risk of recidivism for a person who has been arrested in the distant past is ever indistinguishable from that of a population of persons with no prior arrests. Two well-documented empirical facts guide our investigation: (1) individuals who have offended in the past are relatively more likely to offend in the future; and (2) the risk of recidivism declines as the time since the last criminal act increases. Using hazard rates and posterior distribution analysis, we find that immediately following an arrest, the knowledge of this prior record does significantly differentiate this population from a population of nonoffenders. However, these differences weaken dramatically and quickly over time so that a person who offended 6 or 7 years in the past looks very similar in regard to risk of new offending to a person who never offended at all. ..more.. by Megan C. Kurlychek, Assistant Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina -and- Robert Brame, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina -and- Shawn D. Bushway, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland