The Recidivism of Drug Offenders Following Release from Prison: A Comparison of Kentucky Outcomes

ABSTRACT

This study presents findings on the community release performance of prisoners incarcerated for a drug offense and released over a 30-month period (July 2002 – December 2004). Within this sample, propensity score matching was used to construct comparable groups of parolees and offenders released unconditionally into the community. The authors find that drug offenders released from prison are highly likely to be returned to prison postrelease and drug offenders released on parole are more likely than their counterparts to be returned to prison. In addition, drug offenders on parole are substantially more likely than drug offenders released without supervision to be reincarcerated within 5 years after release.

KEYWORDS:

• Recidivism
• parole
• reentry/reintegration

Notes

¹ We received automated data from the Kentucky Department of Corrections and were limited by the information they collected and recorded.