The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has posted an online analysis tool that allows users to calculate recidivism rates for persons released from state prisons. Recidivism rates may be generated for the entire sample of 35,000 released prisoners or for released prisoners with specific demographic, criminal history, and sentence attributes. The tool uses data collected by BJS on a sample of inmates released from state prisons in 1994 and followed for three yerars. A new BJS study on the recidivism of state prisoners released in 2005 is due next year.
BJS says the tool defines recidivism in a variety of ways and allows users to choose the measure that best fits their needs or to compare the various measures of recidivism for the same group of releases. As one example, of black men released between the ages of 21 and 25, more than 80 percent were rearrested within three years and 35 percent were reimprisoned.
http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=datool&surl=/recidivism/index.cfm
