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Return to prison is another measure of recidivism that is often used in research examining prison releasees, and can be influenced by both rearrests as well as other violations of mandatory supervised release. As described above, inmates rearrested for a new crime while on MSR in Illinois can be returned to prison because of this new arrest without being convicted, and are considered to be ―technical violations‖ as opposed to a return to prison for a new crime. Inmates returned to prison for violating the conditions of MSR other than a new arrest can be viewed as ―purely‖ technical violators, and can include reasons such as failure to report to their parole agent, not complying with treatment requirements, testing positive for drugs during urinalysis, etc. If an inmate released from prison is rearrested, convicted and re-sentenced to IDOC as a result of this new conviction within 3 years following release, they are considered by IDOC to be ―new offense recidivists.‖
In order to examine the degree to which females released from Illinois’ prison system experienced recidivism, both rearrests for new crimes and return to prison were examined. Specifically, for the current project, detailed Illinois criminal history record information were obtained from the ICJIA through a cooperative agreement with the Illinois State Police, along with data directly from the IDOC for all adults released from prison in Illinois during SFY 2007. Because inmates can be released multiple times within a specific fiscal year, the first release during the fiscal year was used to select the cases for inclusion in the analyses when an inmate had multiple exits during SFY 2007. So, if an inmate was released from prison after having been returned as a parole violator, and then subsequently readmitted and re-released during SFY 2007 as a court commitment, the first exit event (the release after having served additional time for a technical parole violation) was selected for inclusion in the analyses. Within the sample selected, 78 percent of the 34,034 cases were for releases following incarceration for a court-imposed sentence and 22 percent of the cases were for releases following incarceration that resulted from a technical parole violation. The criminal history record information included all arrests reported to the Illinois State Police criminal history record information (CHRI) system as of May 2010, so each individual included in the analyses was at risk of being rearrested for an average of 34 months, or almost 3 years, while return to prison data went through June 2010. Thus, the average length of the follow-up period was roughly 3 years, although most—90 percent--of those
