WASHINGTON — Recidivism is an inadequate measurement of success after release from prison, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report recommends researchers develop supplementary measures that evaluate success across multiple areas of a person’s life after prison — including employment, housing, health, social support, and personal well-being — and that measure interactions with the criminal justice system with more nuance. Federal efforts should be directed to developing national standards for recidivism data and new measurements.

State and federal prisons in the U.S. release nearly 600,000 people annually. Recidivism — which refers to a return to criminal behavior — is a common measure of an individual’s success after release from prison, but it falls short of describing other, positive elements of reentry into society. The report says given the rehabilitative function of prisons and reentry supervision, expanded measures of post-release success would enable these systems to better understand their impact and best practices.

“Our report draws on the expertise of individuals who have experienced reentry, those who work in corrections and reentry services, as well as victims’ advocates and many other communities — and it’s clear that it’s time we recognize the numerous shortcomings of relying exclusively on recidivism data,” said Richard Rosenfeld, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Better measures could open many doors for better decision-making and policy.”

The Limits of Recidivism
The new report, The Limits of Recidivism: Measuring Success After Prison, says the administrative data used to calculate recidivism rates are often limited. These data only describe specific legal system actions — such as arrests, convictions, or incarceration — but do not describe crimes that went undetected. These rates may also include non-criminal parole violations, and can reflect biases of the criminal justice system, such as where to police or who to arrest. To ensure recidivism data are used more accurately and precisely, the report recommends researchers, policymakers, and practitioners specify exactly which legal actions are included in administrative recidivism data.

Recidivism is also limited in that it is a binary measure, says the report. Decades of research have shown that ceasing criminal activity is a process and may involve setbacks. Recidivism rates fail to capture indicators of progress toward the cessation of criminal activity, such as reductions in the seriousness of criminal activity or increases in time between release and a criminal event. Researchers should supplement recidivism rates with these measures of moving away from crime, the report says.

Finding New Measures of Post-Release Success
The report recommends the development of new measures of post-release success that take into account a number of factors in people’s lives after incarceration, including personal well-being, education, employment, housing, family and social supports, health, civic and community engagement, and legal involvement.

In particular, significant efforts — including by federal agencies — should be directed to developing national standards for measuring post-release success. Creating national standards could make data easier to compare across programs and jurisdictions. Creating a website that contains core measures and data collection instruments could hasten development of these standards, the report says.

Federal agencies, including the National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and National Institutes of Health, should convene research panels to assess new measures of post-release success. These agencies should also solicit grant proposals from researchers and practitioners who work collaboratively with formerly incarcerated people to review new measures.

Researchers should also develop new ways to measure barriers to and facilitators of post-release success, which could help improve understanding of how to best serve those released from prison. Individuals released from prison face a number of significant barriers, such as returning to communities without adequate employment opportunities, or lacking access to mental health counseling, among others — and better measures could enhance our understanding of which community and policy factors make post-release success more or less likely.

The report says that formerly incarcerated individuals and reentry practitioners should be directly involved as partners in each stage of the review, development, validation, and implementation of new measures of success among people released from prison.

The study — undertaken by the Committee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison — was sponsored by Arnold Ventures.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.

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