Women Coming Home: Long-Term Patterns of Recidivism

Drawing on recent scholarship on prisoner reentry and gendered pathways to crime, this research explores how social relationships, incarceration experiences, and community context, and the intersection of these factors with race, influence the occurrence and timing of recidivism. Using a large, modern sample of women released from prison, we find that women who are drug dependent, have less education, or have more extensive criminal histories are more likely to fail on parole and to recidivate more quickly during the eight year follow-up period. We also observe racial variation in the effect of education, drug use, and neighborhood concentrated disadvantage on recidivism. This study highlights the importance of an intra-gender, theoretical understanding of recidivism, and has import for policy aimed at female parolees.