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I'm having difficulty finding statistics comparing the recidivism rates of regular prisoners and the ones that worked while serving the sentence. I can't remember where but I've read that "specialists believe working in prisons can reduce recidivism from 70% to 20%" in several different publications and I never really questioned how they got the number.

Claims:

The following graph was made by CALPIA itself and evalutes the recidivism rate of a very limited sample space. http://www.calpia.ca.gov/pdf/Public_Affairs/PIB_CTEducation_Assessment_Report_Nov12.pdf

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Detailed table about CTE: enter image description here

Renan
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    Has anyone heard similar claims? Let's get a notable claim here so we aren't tilting at windmills. – Oddthinking May 01 '13 at 01:50
  • @Oddthinking I've updated the answer with an apparently biased result. Is this enough? – Renan May 01 '13 at 03:10
  • That certainly shows notability!... but it also answers your claim. You ask where the claimants get the numbers, and then provide an example. (I understand the sample isn't huge.) The post may need some tweaking to make your real question clearer. – Oddthinking May 01 '13 at 03:46
  • it would I guess depend heavily on the background of the inmate, what crime he's serving time for, the reasons he committed it, what environment he will return to. Someone convicted of a crime of passion who can return to a stable environment and a job will be far less likely to commit another crime than a hardened gangbanger with a history of drug abuse and related crimes. – jwenting May 01 '13 at 06:56
  • I don't get it what recidivism is. Even the explanation of it at the bottom doesn't really suffice. Could someone make an explanation of the word in the question, with more clear language? – Wertilq May 01 '13 at 07:05
  • @Wertilq it means falling back, committing more crimes after being let out of prison. Some people define it more strictly to include only the same category of crimes, some don't. – jwenting May 01 '13 at 12:06
  • In the question it's 'felony', that's a big crime? That means it's any (big) crime, right? – Wertilq May 01 '13 at 12:30
  • @Wertilq - "Felony" is usually defined by the jurisdiction where you live so there is a bit of a localization problem involved. For example, with regards to thief, stealing a candy bar or other shoplifting might be a minor misdemeanor crime, while stealing an automobile would be a felony crime. – rjzii May 01 '13 at 14:12
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    I don't see any reason to doubt the figures - it makes no sense for the report to lie about them. However there is an obvious caveat which means we can't reduce the recidivism rate by providing compulsory vocational training for all inmates. The CTE participation is voluntary, and so they are a self-selecting sample. It's likely that those who are motivated to get their lives on track are much more likely to enroll in the program, and are also much less likely to reoffend. – DJClayworth May 01 '13 at 16:02
  • @RobZ so many things are now considered felonies that that's no longer the case. There's "felony jaywalking", "felony double parking", "felony speeding with intent", etc. etc. – jwenting May 02 '13 at 05:56
  • @jwenting - That's more a comment on the system in the United States more than anything else. :) – rjzii May 02 '13 at 14:17
  • @RobZ yes, but remember that the term "felony" is pretty US specific as well. Most countries don't make that difference, at most talking about "major crimes", "minor crimes", and "administrative crimes" (the latter being things like parking violations and speeding tickets for small violations). – jwenting May 03 '13 at 05:23

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