Journal article
A systematic review of criminal recidivism rates worldwide: 3-year update
- Abstract:
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Background: Comparing recidivism rates between countries may provide useful information about the relative effectiveness of different criminal justice policies. A previous 2015 review identified criminal recidivism data for 18 countries and found little consistency in outcome definitions and time periods. We aimed to update recidivism rates in prisoners internationally.
Methods: We conducted a systematic review of criminal recidivism rates in prisoners and followed PRISMA guidelines. Using three bibliographic indexes, we carried out non-country-specific and targeted searches for 50 countries with the largest total prison populations. We included reports and studies of released prisoners that reported re-arrest, reconviction and reincarceration rates. Meta-analysis was not possible due to multiple sources of heterogeneity.
Results: We identified criminal recidivism information for 23 countries. Of the 50 countries with the largest prison populations, 10 reported recidivism rates for prisoners. The most commonly reported outcome was the 2-year reconviction rate. We were able to examine recidivism over different time periods for 11 countries and found that most reported small changes in official recidivism rates. Overall, for 2-year follow-up period, reported re-arrest rates were between 26% and 60%, reconviction rates ranged from 20% to 63%, and reimprisonment rates varied from 14 to 45%.
Conclusions: Although some countries made efforts to improve reporting, recidivism rates are not comparable between countries. Criminal justice agencies should consider using reporting guidelines described here to update their data.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Not peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.2MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.14970.2
Authors
- Publisher:
- F1000Research
- Journal:
- Wellcome Open Research More from this journal
- Volume:
- 4
- Article number:
- 28
- Publication date:
- 2019-11-13
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-11-03
- DOI:
- ISSN:
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2398-502X
- Pmid:
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31544154
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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pubs:1055790
- UUID:
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uuid:2bc362e3-07b0-49e6-8c02-9262de2c848f
- Local pid:
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pubs:1055790
- Source identifiers:
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1055790
- Deposit date:
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2019-12-16
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Yukhnenko D et al
- Copyright date:
- 2019
- Notes:
- © 2019 Yukhnenko D et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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