Recidivism and community context: Integrating the environmental backcloth

Abstract

Typically, when place is considered to influence individual-level recidivism, the primary focus is community-level disadvantage through a social disorganization framework. Extant studies have been pivotal in the development of spatial recidivism research; however, there are limited approaches integrating elements from the larger environmental backcloth. Building from social disorganization and the three theoretical pillars of environmental criminology (RC, RAT, CPT), the current study sought to expand on what measures are considered at the tract-level to reflect a wider body of spatial criminological research. The current study employed a multilevel model to analyze a statewide sample of people on parole released from Minnesota state prisons to private residences in 2009, accounting for individual- and tract-level covariates. Neighborhood-level presence of prosocial places (churches, employment services, and civil and social organizations) was negatively related to recidivism, but this relationship was weaker in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The discussion is nested with the broader ecological and environmental corrections literature on better accounting for and measuring “where” characteristics for recidivism to use jointly with the known “who” characteristics.