This data collection examines the relationship between individual characteristics and recidivism for two cohorts of inmates released from North Carolina prisons in 1978 and 1980. The survey contains questions on the background of the offenders, including their involvement in drugs or alcohol, level of schooling, nature of the crime resulting in the sample conviction, number of prior incarcerations and recidivism following release from the sample incarceration. The data collection also contains information on the length of time until recidivism occurs.

The purpose of the study was to quantify the effect of the embrace of DNA technology on offender behavior. In particular, researchers examined whether an offender's knowledge that their DNA profile was entered into a database deterred them from offending in the future and if probative effects resulted from DNA sampling. The researchers coded information using criminal history records and data from Florida's DNA database, both of which are maintained by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and also utilized court docket information acquired through the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) to create a dataset of 156,702 cases involving offenders released from the FDOC in the state of Florida between January 1996 and December 2004. The data contain a total of 50 variables. Major categories of variables include demographic variables regarding the offender, descriptive variables relating to the initial crime committed by the offender, and time-specific variables regarding cases of recidivism.

These data were gathered to investigate the usefulness of statistical methods, particularly multiple-regression analysis, in predicting repeat criminal activity subsequent to an individual's release from prison. The data collection consists of follow-up information, collected in 1988, on a sample of males released from California prisons. The follow-up study identified criminal activity subsequent to individuals' release from prison through 1988. Predictor variables include age, prior periods of arrest, history of drug use, seriousness of original offense, and number of arrests for nuisance, person, property, and fraud offenses.

This study examines the criminal activities of a group of young offenders after their release from prison to parole supervision. Previous studies have examined recidivism using arrests as the principal measure, whereas this study examines a variety of factors, including length of incarceration, age, sex, race, prior arrest record, prosecutions, length of time between parole and rearrest, parolees not prosecuted for new offenses but having their parole revoked, rearrests in states other than the paroling states, and the nature and location of rearrest charges. Parolees in the 22 states covered in this study account for 50 percent of all state prisoners paroled in the United States in 1978.

This study was conducted to test whether job counseling and placement services, accompanied by intensive follow-up after placement, would significantly increase the effectiveness of employment programs for individuals recently released from prison. Data were collected on personal, criminal, and employment backgrounds, including the type, duration, and pay of previous employment, living arrangements, marital status, criminal history, and characteristics of the employment placement.

recidivism rates for persons released from state prisons with specific demographic, criminal history, and sentence attributes.

This study examined the public's preferences regarding sentencing and parole of criminal offenders. It also investigated the public's willingness to pay for particular crime prevention and control strategies and tested new methods for gathering this kind of information from the public. This involved asking the public to respond to a series of crime vignettes that involved constrained choice. The study consisted of a telephone survey of 1,300 adult respondents conducted in 2000 in the United States. Following a review by a panel of experts and extensive pretesting, the final instrument was programmed for computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The questionnaire specifically focused on: (1) the attitudes of the public on issues such as the number of police on the street, civil rights of minority groups, and the legal rights of people accused of serious crimes, (2) the randomized evaluation of preferred sentencing alternatives for eight different crime scenarios, (3) making parole decisions in a constrained choice setting by assuming that there is only enough space for one of two offenders, (4) the underlying factors that motivate the public's parole decisions, and (5) respondents' willingness to pay for various crime prevention strategies.

In order to assess the impacts of state-level sentencing and corrections policies in the United States implemented between 1975 and 2002 on state incarceration rates during that same time period, researchers conducted a two-phase study between November 2002 and March 2004. The first phase of the research involved building a framework for understanding the types of state-level sentencing and corrections policies in use between 1975 and 2002. Phase two of the project consisted of state-level data collection for all 50 states for all study years, 1975 to 2002. The researchers produced a dataset containing outcome variables that focus on the change and growth in state incarceration rates, non-policy control variables that were found in previous studies to be associated with changes in incarceration rates, and policy variables regarding sentencing structure, drug policy, time served requirements, habitual offender laws (HOL), and mandatory sentences.

Using data from RECIDIVISM OF PRISONERS RELEASED IN 1994: [UNITED STATES] (ICPSR 3355), this study developed an analytical approach to utilize detailed dated criminal arrest history information in order to investigate whether, and to what extent, incarceration is able to deter offenders from future offending. This data collection consists of the syntax for a SAS macro used to estimate individual specific offending micro-trajectories, project counterfactual trajectories, and to assess the actual post-release offending patterns against the backdrop of these counterfactuals. The arrest records of individuals were clustered in chronological order and were truncated after the first post-release re-arrest event. The key independent variables used in estimating the pre-release criminal history accumulation process included the arrest number, the age at first arrest, whether or not the individual was confined as a result of the previous arrest event, and a measure of the number of years taken to reach each arrest event cumulated through the last arrest event. The same set of basic variables were used to model first re-arrest after release (recidivism).

The purpose of this data collection was to measure the validity or accuracy of four recidivism prediction instruments: the INSLAW, RAND, SFS81, and CGR scales. These scales estimate the probability that criminals will commit subsequent crimes quickly, that individuals will commit crime frequently, that inmates who are eligible for release on parole will commit subsequent crimes, and that defendants awaiting trial will commit crimes while on pretrial arrest or detention. The investigators used longitudinal data from five existing independent studies to assess the validity of the four predictive measures in question. The first data file was originally collected by the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City and was derived from an experimental evaluation of a jobs training program called the Alternative Youth Employment Strategies Project implemented in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Miami, Florida, and New York City, New York. The second file contains data from a RAND Corporation study, EFFECTS OF PRISON VERSUS PROBATION IN CALIFORNIA, 1980-1982 (ICPSR 8700), from offenders in Alameda and Los Angeles counties, California. Parts 3 through 5 pertain to serious juvenile offenders who were incarcerated during the 1960s and 1970s in three institutions of the California Youth Authority. A portion of the original data for these parts was taken from EARLY IDENTIFICATION OF THE CHRONIC OFFENDER, [1978-1980: CALIFORNIA] (ICPSR 8226). All files present demographic and socioeconomic variables such as birth information, race and ethnicity, education background, work and military experience, and criminal history, including involvement in criminal activities, drug addiction, and incarceration episodes. From the variables in each data file, standard variables across all data files were constructed. Constructed variables included those on background (such as drug use, arrest, conviction, employment, and education history), which were used to construct the four predictive scales, and follow-up variables concerning arrest and incarceration history. Scores on the four predictive scales were estimated.