Abstract
Abstract Offenders outside secure settings form an under-researched and potentially vulnerable group. This study sought to meta-analytically establish whether community offenders, without mental illnesses, die prematurely compared to non-offender community and population comparison samples. Thirty-six studies met our inclusion criteria (N = 1,116,614). Premature mortality is a significant issue for community offenders in general (OR = 3.42), and for ex-prisoners in particular (OR = 4.51). Offenders were more likely to die from unnatural violent causes (OR = 3.97) and natural causes (OR = 2.06) than non-offenders, with a meta-regression revealing that age was not a significant factor (z = −0.01, p = 0.12). These results suggest that the rates of premature mortality previously found for offenders do not just reflect the impact of mental illness on these individuals, but rather that a life of crime may have a significant physiological impact on the body.
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