Gender and the Release from Jail: Predicting the Likelihood of a Probation Violation versus a New Offense

ABSTRACT

The current study utilizes a dataset of 1,300 individuals who have been released from a Pennsylvania county jail between 2015 to 2017 to assess the competing risks of returning to jail on a probation violation versus committing a new offense. The study also examines differences between males and females. The findings suggest that while traditional predictors of recidivism help to explain male behavior, they do not allow for an understanding of women’s recidivism. Future research must continue to explore gender-specific factors to provide more clarity on the experiences of men and women upon release.

KEYWORDS:

• Recidivism
• probation violations
• jail
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Although data represents individuals released between six to eight years ago at the time of publication, it is important to note that the patterns and trends that emerge are consistent with more recent recidivism studies on men and women (Campbell et al., 2020; Latessa et al., 2020).

2. We chose to use the point an individual is arrested for another offense rather than recommitted. This is primarily because the time to recommitment can vary substantially depending on the speed a case moves through the court system. Using arrest removes this variation and concentrates on the criminal behavior. In addition, we unfortunately cannot observe whether an arrest results in a return to jail pending trial.

3. While data on race and marital status were collected, regression results show that these factors were not significant in determining recidivism. To allow for a more parsimonious model, these variables are excluded from the results.