What is the percentage of felons that return to prison?

Answer 1

I just recently seen an older statistic stating that 52% return to prison within 3 years for a new offense or violating a condition of there release. I believe it was in 1994 from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Try www.pbs.org/now/shows/332/americas-prisons.html There are alot of good stats on this page. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Answer 1: Not sure nationally, but I just figured Florida with 600000 by 18 mill population is ~3% if that helps you any.

Answer 2: At least 26% of Americans have committed a felony because not filling out the Census is a felony and only 72% of the US population filled out the 2000 Census. The two percent error results from the increase of the population over the last 10 years [1]. A small margin of error will result from not taking into account the felons, who have died in the past 10 years.

[1] Numbers taken from US populations trends on Google - public data, which is taken directly from US Census Bureau Population Projections

Answer 3

This is not an easy number to generate as evidenced by the Department of Justice Bureau of Statistics. Only two studies on recidivism have been done in the past twenty years, 1989 and 1994. Of the two, the 1994 study is considered the most comprehensive. The 1994 study was conducted using data from fifteen states, representing the averages for all US states' incarceration and offender types. Below are some percentages from that study:

Rates of release by class of crime:

• robbers - 70.2%
• burglars - 74.0%
• larcenists - 74.6%
• motor vehicle thieves - 78.8%
• possession and sales of stolen property - 77.4%
• possession, sales, and/or use of illegal weapons - 70.2%
• rapists - 2.5% within 3 years (The rate climbs or falls based on other factors - 15% for those involved in homosexual acts to statistically untrackable for those involved in any sexual crime involving a family member)
• homicide - 1.2%

Percentages in light of raw numbers:

• Of the 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 that were the focus of the study, they represented 4.1 million arrest charges before their most recent imprisonment. Three years after their release they represented another 744,000 charges.

Of the tracked crimes:

• An average of 56.1125% returned to prison within three years of release in 1994.

The numbers tracked by the FBI on their Uniform Crime Report, supports this data and indicates little change from then until now.