Ecological Context, Criminal Propensity, and Recidivism

Abstract

This study examines whether the relationship between individual-level risk and recidivism varies according to ecological context, measured at the census tract level. It is hypothesized that high-risk offenders—as measured by Minnesota Screening Tool Assessing Recidivism Risk (MnSTARR) 2.0 and Level of Service Inventory–Revised (LSI-R)—will have elevated risk of recidivism when living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and lower risk of recidivism when living in affluent neighborhoods. These hypotheses are tested with hierarchical logistic models predicting rearrest and revocation for a technical violation among a sample of approximately 3,000 offenders released from Minnesota state prisons in 2009. Rearrest was positively related to neighborhood disadvantage and negatively related to neighborhood affluence, while revocation was positively related to neighborhood urbanism. Further, neighborhood disadvantage moderated the association between LSI-R and rearrest; however, this interaction was not in the hypothesized direction. The results contradict prior literature examining similar relationships at the county level.