U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS
How the NCRP Informs BJS’s Recidivism Research
Sixth Annual Data Providers MeetingApril 2017
Presented by
Joshua MarkmanStatistician
Recidivism & Corrections Units
2www.bjs.gov
Outline of the Presentation
•How the NCRP supports criminal history record-
based recidivism estimates
•BJS’s approach to NCRP-based recidivism reports
• Soliciting feedback
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Criminal history-based recidivism support: Sample selection
• NCRP serves as the sampling frame for traditional cohorts such as admission or release
• Primary objective is to have all 50 states represented
• Review NCRP’s demographic, identifying, geographic information and data missingness by
year
• Outreach to non-reporting states requesting that they supplement submissions with
identifying information
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Criminal history-based recidivism support: Sample selection
• States participating in 2005 recidivism study: 30
• State inclusion in Release and Admission Cohort studies
• States approved to-date: 41
• States opting out of participation: 5
• States that have not yet responded to BJS request: 4
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Criminal history-based recidivism support: Verification
• Record matching and validation
• Confirm identifying, demographic, and criminal history
information in NCRP matches obtained criminal history records
• Straightforward, but a critical quality control step
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Criminal history-based recidivism support: Verification
• NCRP data contains details that criminal history records currently do
not contain
• E.g., Determinate/indeterminate sentencing or mandatory minimums
• NCRP data contains details that are much more robust than found in
criminal history records
• E.g., Demographics, returns to prison, release conditions
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BJS’s (planned) recidivism studies
• Release cohort: 2012 – 3 year recidivism rates
• Admission cohorts: 2009, 2014 – prior offending patterns
• Survey of Prison Inmates: Assess overlap between self-report and CHR
offending history
• Second Chance Act Pilot: Use CHR to assess program effectiveness
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BJS’s approach to NCRP-based recidivism reports
• Highlight two approaches to recidivism estimates
• Event-based – traditional criminal justice approach
• Cohort of releasees and track when and how frequently they return
• Offender-based – Alternative measure made possible through NCRP data collection
• Individuals released from prison over a long period
• Reweight a release cohort to resemble a “population” of offenders
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BJS’s approach to NCRP-based recidivism reports: Event and offender methodologies
PR N R N S S N C
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BJS’s approach to NCRP-based recidivism reports: Event and offender methodologies
2010 ReleaseEvent: 60% return
Offender: 60% return15 out of 25
Red images are not only those who returned to prison within X years, they are the EXACT same personNon-red images represent those who were released from prison and never returned
2012 ReleaseEvent: 60% return
Offender: 43% return15 out of 35
2014 ReleaseEvent: 60% return
Offender: 33% return15 out of 45
PR N R N S S N C
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BJS’s approach to NCRP-based recidivism reports: Event and offender methodologies
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Ret
urn
ing
Pe
rce
nt
Years-at-Risk
Event
Offender
PR N R N S S N C
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BJS’s approach to NCRP-based recidivism reports: Anticipated reports
• One (1) research paper:
• Discuss literature, methodology, estimate calculation for event- and
offender-based calculations
• One (1) policy paper:
• Exploring the appropriateness of employing event- or offender-based
methods based on the question / problem
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BJS’s approach to NCRP-based recidivism reports: Anticipated reports
• Three (3) initial, substantive reports in the series:
• Release cohort recidivism bulletin
• Admission cohort prior offending patterns bulletin
• Sentence length and time served special report
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Soliciting feedback
• Asking the right questions?
• When/how quickly do you need results?
• Is there an ideal format or medium?
• What is useful? What is not? What is missing?
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Joshua Markman
202.616.1718
Contact information