Numbers remain high even though fewer inmates are returning to prison

A new report by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation found that the percentage of former inmates who returned to prison in the three years after their release had declined from 65.1 percent for inmates released in fiscal year 2006-07 to 63.1 percent for inmates released in 2007-08 – even though more inmates were released in 2007-08.

In 2007-08, 113,888 inmates were released from California prisons. In 2006-07, 112,665 were released.

Despite 2007-08′s larger numbers, California also saw a decrease in the number of former inmates convicted of new crimes (56,525 in 2007-08 versus 57,980 in 2006-07) and the percentage of former inmates re-arrested (75.8 percent in 2007-08, 76.6 percent in 2006-07)

The recidivism drop follows a similar one the previous year when the three-year return-to-prison percentage fell from 67.5  percent in 2005-06 to 65.1 percent in 2006-07.

Not everyone, of course, is buying that narrative. The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a nonprofit “dedicated to restoring a balance between the rights of crime victims and the criminally accused,” recently put out a news release questioning the efficacy of the state’s risk-assessment tools. Those tools are also being used in realignment, Gov. Jerry Brown‘s plan to shift the custody and supervision of certain nonviolent offenders from state prisons to county jails.

Read More: http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2012/11/21/state-recidivism-rate-declines-for-2nd-straight-year/163984/