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The article The Changing State of Recidivism: Fewer People Going Back to Prison shows a radical decrease in the amount of prisoners who go back to prison after they are released since 2005. This paper uses the data from 23 states from 2005 through 2015. I believe that the results of this paper are impressive, however it should be taken with a grain of salt. The data does not account for prisoners who returned to prison in a different state and also uses less than half the states in the US. It is very difficult to actually find sufficient data and the authors did a great job of addressing this concern in the article. The authors also provided some other sources that in conjunction could be used to form an opinion.

The study is a very interesting read and my obvious next question would be: why are prisoners less likely now than in 2005 to return to prison? What type of factors could be causing this change? I am curious if the prison system is  improving or if it is an outside factor driving past prisoners to remain outside bars. The judicial system may also be prosecuting less prisoners, so in order to determine if the prison system is actually improving, I would like to review a couple other different data sources. The first data set I would review is arrest numbers across all 23 states. If arrests are continuously decreasing, then these results would be expected. The next aspect I would look at is the amount of court cases that result in the defendant going to prison (conviction rate?). A lower percentage would also imply a decrease in prison returns.

Overall, I believe that this study individually is not enough to form a conclusive argument. However in addition to other reliable sources, it provides strong evidence of the decrease in prison returns, hence an increase in effectiveness of US prisons.