On Greenberg's Two-Step Model of Criminal Recidivism

Abstract

With more than two million people currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails, many of them repeat offenders, there is widespread agreement that criminal recidivism is a serious and costly problem in both human and economic terms. In this article, a stochastic model, which is a somewhat simplified version of a model first proposed by Greenberg, is discussed. An argument for the model is made based on recent theoretical and empirical studies that demonstrate the importance of social bonds in both the commission of and the abstinence from crime. This argument provides a stronger theoretical basis for the model, since it suggests that the model's trichotomization of a cohort of released prisoners reflects truly discrete differences and not just a convenient simplification imposed on a continuous variable. The model is shown to fit trial data sets very well, enabling the measurement of asymptotic recidivism—the ultimate percentage of a release cohort who will recidivate.

Keywords:

• correctional
• criminal
• incarceration
• offender
• prison
• recidivism

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, whose careful and thoughtful reading and comments were most helpful.