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The Changing State of Recidivism: Fewer People Going Back to Prison Response

 

These articles discuss the decline in recidivism in certain states around the United States and how there are fewer people going back to prison. Our authors discuss how data shows that the number of prisoners being reincarcerated after being released for 3 years has dropped about 25% since the previous report completed in 2005. The process of how all prisoners are logged and how through them acting as data points in the grand scheme of the prison system make it easier to collect data on their crime, their sentence and whether they entered back once they were released. Though interesting, there were two aspects of this article that I did not quite understand. First, I did not understand how the lack of specifics on each prisoner’s case “has complicated efforts to understand the aggregate effects of myriad federal, state, and local efforts to reduce reoffending” (Gelb).  Secondly, luckily to classmate ‘mgates’ I saw that states had the option to not provide information. This makes me question how valid this data collected is. Unless things are getting worse why would states withhold their data?