12.16 Current Issues: The Revolving Door
Brandon Hamann and David Carter
12.16.1. Reentry and the Revolving Door
Parole, as discussed in previous chapters, has had mixed success. Overall, the effectiveness of parole hovers around 50% nationwide – meaning that roughly 50% of parolees are sent back to prison to complete their sentences. It is estimated that somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 individuals are on parole in any given year, with several hundred thousand exiting each year. This brings up questions about what happens to these individuals – do they remain in the community after completing their sentence…or do they return to prison like their less successful parole counterparts?
The reality is that many of them will be rearrested. In one of the most comprehensive studies on reentry outcomes, Alper, Durose, and Markman (2018) tracked the recidivism rate of individuals over a 9-year follow-up period. What they found was that rearrest occurred for about 70% in the first three years, and by year 9, 83% of the individuals released had been rearrested. Many of these individuals return to prison, giving rise to the concept of the “revolving door” of justice. These statistics reflect poorly on the long-term effects of incarceration as well as the reentry programs available to support individuals leaving prison. In order to be more successful, individuals returning to society need assistance to get back on their feet – and stay on their feet. Such assistance includes education and vocational training, employment assistance to get a job, legal services, information on public benefits, and housing connections. Interestingly, it appears as though many of these “reentry needs” here are the same as the “criminogenic needs” that landed individuals in the justice system initially (Alper, Durose, and Markman, 2018). Unfortunately, it appears as though such needs are not being addressed while individuals are incarcerated, creating a cycle of “catch and release.”
Many social circumstances and policies compound the challenges offenders face upon release. Over the last 40 years, there has been an overwhelming push to include items on employment applications that ask about prior criminal history. If an individual responds truthfully, their applications may be overlooked or discarded (an act of illegal discrimination, in fact). Moreover, gaps in ex-offenders’ career history and education may undermine their attempts at gainful employment after incarceration, a reality that has become even starker in the U.S. “knowledge economy.” Discrimination against ex-offenders is also rampant in housing applications, which similarly inquire about criminal history. If an individual reports prior arrests, their applications may be placed at the bottom of the pile. We might further note the ways in which barriers to housing and employment for ex-offenders are mutually reinforcing; it is hard for an individual without stable housing to hold down a job, while someone without a regular income may struggle to pay for housing. Combined, these barriers to reentry call into question when an ex-offenders sentence has been “served” if consequences continue well beyond the period of formal correctional control. The informal discrimination faced by offenders after release is sometimes labeled as the “collateral consequences” of punishment.
12.16.2. Future Outlook of Corrections
Given the “revolving door” presented above, the problems facing corrections (overcrowding, violence) are not likely to go away anytime soon. Even as crime has decreased dramatically, the U.S. has seen an increase in the overall correctional population for decades. While there has been some reduction in prison populations recently, these changes are unlikely to hold unless other changes are made. Notably, the functions of community corrections need to be better supported, and follow evidence-based practices, if individuals are expected to stay out of prison. Without such support, the prison population is likely to increase once again, due to the eventual return of too many “failures” in community corrections. Most offenders are in need of some basic assistance to get themselves back to a functioning level in society, including help with education, substance use, employment, and general and mental health. Otherwise, the 6 million individuals in all forms of correctional control can quickly turn into 8 million.
Recidivism in Louisiana and Tennessee
Not everything is all doom and gloom in Louisiana regarding the criminal justice system. One bright spot that can be talked about positively is the recidivism rate in the state. Since 2017, state leadership has signed into law multiple reforms in sentencing, corrections, and community supervision all meant to alleviate the strain on prison overpopulation (Wertheimer, 2022). The effects of these new laws have seen a dramatic decrease in the arrests of re-offenders into the criminal justice system. Louisiana now ranks 11th in the nation in recidivism with a 29.6% rate, well below the national average of 37.1% (wisevoter.com, 2023). The bulk of the success can be attributed to how the state treats its non-violent offenders. In a 5-year period, imprisonment rates per 100,000 dropped by more than 50% for non-violent offenders in the state.
Tennessee has a recidivism rate of 47.2% rearrested within 3 years (World Population Review, 2025). As you can see from above, this is a higher recidivsm rate than Louisiana and the national average.
To read more on recidivism rates in Louisiana, click on the links below. You can also use the second link to check out recidivism rates for Tennessee, or your home state.
Review Checks
What drives a person to become a criminologist? All scientists conduct measurements. Criminologists are no different. A criminologist examines crime in a “temporal-spatial” (time and space) way. In these longitudinal studies, the characteristics of crimes and those who break the laws are measured. In an effort to curb or eliminate crime throughout history, writers and scholars have written and studied how to contribute toward the reduction, if not complete elimination, of crime. You might be surprised to learn that the term “criminology” is a relatively new one, developed just over one hundred years ago (Schmalleger, 2006).
It is important to consider the theoretical assumptions of social policies regarding criminal deviance. Does the well-dressed person at a bus stop awaiting the arrival of a scheduled transit ride home after work, raise suspicions of the police? Absent any more detail, no. This subject is in a place where they are lawfully permitted to be, lacking any criminal motivation or intent. Contrast this situation with a person at that same bus stop whose manner of dress is in disarray, and who is waiting for another bus one hour later. Someone flags down a police officer and reports this person who “looks out of place.” The officer approaches the offending party and asks what’s happening, the response is, “I’m just hanging out.” Has a crime been committed? In the days when the crime of vagrancy was on the books, then perhaps the answer is “yes.” In today’s world, generally, no crime has been committed. In a series of cases on vagrancy (City of Seattle v. Drew, 1967; City of St. Louis v. Gloner, 1908; Pinkerton v. Verberg, 1889; State v. Caez, 1963; Territory of Hawaii v. Anduha, 1931), various states ruled that laws exhibiting such vagueness and overly-broad language can conceivably give police the discretion to decide who walks the streets, and potentially penalize persons who are experiencing homelessness or are otherwise unsheltered. Such action taken by the police would be looked upon as an abuse of discretionary powers, and would be implicitly unconstitutional. At the time when this was occurring years ago, such action was generally considered to be the “law of the land,” and sanctioned by many communities which wanted squatting laws enforced. Today, the laws and the police who enforce them are taking different approaches in order to create solutions which will be sensitive to the needs of all parties.
One also needs to ask the question: “What is criminal deviance?” Initially, the question seems easy to answer. In fact, criminologists, depending upon their individual viewpoints, may disagree and have differing answers. Criminologist Paul Tappan (1947) believed that only criminal acts defined by a code of criminal law should be considered. The perspective of Herman and Julia Schwendinger (1970) takes a much broader-based approach by saying that a wide range of social injuries and injustices, not just those prohibited under written legal code, should be addressed in the study of criminology. As one can see, the two perspectives are inconsistent and even incompatible with each other.
A third view from some mainstream criminologists selects a definition of the field which is less constrained than Tappan’s, but not as open-ended as the Schwendingers’. As an example, Thorsten Sellin (1938) opined that violation of conduct norms should be studied by criminologists. Each case has its strength of viewpoint, yet all face scrutiny in some fact or fashion. As an example, under Tappan’s model, the former crime of vagrancy would fall within the area of criminology when there were laws against vagrancy. However, due to case precedent declaring the crime of vagrancy “void for vagueness,” and the optics created by housing shortages and resorting to unsheltered conditions, vagrancy as a crime is largely non-existent, or at least not enforced, today. For today’s criminologists, an area of concern might more correctly consider the predatory practices of landlords, large corporations and government actions that marginalize, and may even target, some members of society while enriching others from the conflict criminology perspective. In this way, criminologists study criminal acts by offenders to better understand motivations, consider deterrence measures, and proscribe rehabilitation strategies or mechanisms to prevent or catch criminals in the future. In considering the effectiveness of these efforts, the data points (arrest information) are largely what criminologists rely upon for their research and correlation findings. Impediments to their work can result when something was not illegal, or no arrest was made, resulting in a situation where no data would be available from which to conduct analysis.
Review Checks
