Going Home (or Not): How Residential Change Might Help Former Offenders Stay Out of Prison

1. Going Home (or Not):How Residential Change Might Help Former Offenders Stay Out of Prison David S. Kirk Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin dkirk@prc.utexas.edu National Institute of Justice October 24, 2011

2. There Are

3. 730,000 Prisoners released each year in the U.S.

4. 50% of former prisoners are re-incarcerated within 3 years (new convictions and parole violations) Reducing this number is not only a public safety imperative, but also a budget imperative.

5. Motivating Facts • Most prisoners “return home” • Concentration of prisoner reentry Why are these facts consequential? • Peer Influence: The likelihood of criminal behavior increases with exposure to peers who engage in such behavior.

6. MARRIAGE AND SEPARATION FROM CRIMINAL PEERS Source: The New Yorker

7. Rationale • Most prisoners “return home” • Concentration of prisoner reentry Why are these facts consequential? • Peer Influence: The likelihood of criminal behavior increases with exposure to peers who engage in such behavior. • Opportunity: Returning “home” to familiar settings may expose individuals to more criminal opportunities than they otherwise would if they had moved to a new geographic area.

8. A Turning Point? A change of residence may allow individuals to separate from their criminal peers and may reduce the number of criminal opportunities available to them, thus lowering the likelihood of crime and recidivism.

9. Hurricane Katrina as a Natural Experiment

15. A Natural Experiment Hurricane Katrina induced some individuals to move who otherwise would not have moved had it not been for the hurricane. Compare the likelihood of recidivism among parolees who moved post-Katrina to similar parolees pre-Katrina who returned to their old place of residence.

17. { 25% induced to move

18. Data and Research Design

19. Data Sources • Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and the Division of Probation and Parole: parolee data including re-incarceration and post-incarceration place of residence. • U.S. Census, Louisiana Dept. of Labor, HUD, and ESRI: time-series data of zip code and parish social and economic characteristics. • Criminal Justice System Data: time-series data by parish on the likelihood of arrest given a crime, avg contacts by parole officers, judge caseloads, and lagged reincarceration rates.

20. Sample • The sample consists of releases from the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections to parole supervision. • Two release cohorts: Sep 2001 - Feb 2002 (pre-Katrina) and Sep 2005 – Feb 2006 (post-Katrina). • Sex offenders are excluded from the sample.

21. Questions, Hypotheses, and Answers

22. Question 1 If the post-Katrina releases moved, did they go to “better” neighborhoods? Hypothesis 1: The types of geographic areas where parolees typically reside, in terms of poverty and economic conditions, are similar or even more disadvantaged for movers than for stayers.

23. Socio-Economic Context, Movers vs. Stayers

24. Question 2 Does residential change serve as a catalyst for desistance and long-term behavioral change? Hypothesis 2: The likelihood of recidivism is lower when parolees reside in a geographic area different from where they resided prior to incarceration.

25. Effect of Moving: One-Year Published in: Kirk, D.S. 2009. “A Natural Experiment on Residential Change and Recidivism: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina.”American Sociological Review 74:484-505. Note: includes reincarceration in prison and detention in local facilities and other states.

26. Temporary Change or True Change? 3 Hypothetical Scenarios about the Effect of Moving: • Short-term pause in criminal behavior • Catch-up • Real behavioral change

27. Scenario #1: Short-Term Pause

28. Scenario #2: Catch-Up

29. Scenario #3: Real Behavioral Change

30. Actual Results Kirk, D.S. 2012. “Residential Change as a Turning Point in the Life Course of Crime: Desistance or Temporary Cessation?”Criminology. Forthcoming, April.

32. Effect of Moving: Three-Years The probability of re-incarceration is 0.15 lower for parolees who migrated. Note: includes reincarceration in prison and detention in local facilities and other states.

34. Discussion and Implications

35. Policy Implications • Parolee residency restrictions may be counterproductive to public safety. • In most states, prisoners released to parole supervision are legally required to return to their county of last residence.

36. Example: Texas Government Code § 508.181 “a parole panel shall require as a condition of parole or mandatory supervision that the releasee reside in the county in which: (1) the releasee resided at the time of committing the offense for which the releasee was sentenced to the institutional division; or (2) the releasee committed the offense for which the releasee was sentenced to the institutional division, if the releasee was not a resident of this state at the time of committing the offense”

37. Policy Implications • Parolee residency restrictions may be counterproductive to public safety. • In most states, prisoners released to parole supervision are legally required to return to their county of last residence. • Findings from Louisiana suggest that allowing prisoners to move to different parishes/counties will reduce recidivism. • Thus, it may be fruitful for states to reconsider the residency restrictions imposed on returning prisoners.

38. Policy Implications But even if they were not legally barred from moving, many ex-prisoners still cannot move because of limited income and limited housing options. Solution: Incentivize moving? • Make housing vouchers available in locations some distance (e.g., 25+ miles) from where an offender lived in the past.

41. As President Obama recently made clear, this is an Administration that believes in the importance of second chances – that people who have paid their debt to society deserve the opportunity to become productive citizens and caring parents, to set the past aside and embrace the future. Part of that support means helping ex-offenders gain access to one of the most fundamental building blocks of a stable life – a place to live. Letter from Secretary Shaun Donovan and Assistant Secretary Sandra B. Henriquez to public housing authority directors, June 17, 2011.

42. Savings from lower recidivism • Post-Katrina, Louisiana is admitting about 600 fewer parole violators to prison eachyear than pre-Katrina, partly because of residential change. • It costs roughly $43.22/day to incarcerate an offender. • Avg length of stay for parole violators = 18 months (548 days)

43. Total Cost Savings 600 x $43.22 x 548 days = $14.2M per release cohort

44. So what now?

45. How about a randomized trial? • Small demonstration project to see if housing vouchers can be used to reduce recidivism. • Assign 300 prisoners set to be released to parole to a “treatment” group requiring a move to a new city but with a monthly housing voucher. • Assign another 300 parolees to a “comparison” group that returns to the city where they resided pre-incarceration with a monthly housing voucher. • Assign another 300 parolees to a “control” group that returns to the city where they resided pre-incarceration without a housing voucher. • Compare recidivism outcomes across groups.

46. Sensitivity Analysis

47. Alternative Interpretations • Hurricane Katrina may have affected reincarceration by mechanisms other than residential migration. • For example, perhaps parole officers became more lenient post-Katrina. In this case, recidivism may have gone down because of leniency, not because parolees were behaving any better.

48. Design of a Sensitivity Analysis Is it possible to account for pre- to post-Katrina changes in correlates of recidivism such as leniency? Yes. By only using data from the sample of prisoners released post-Katrina.