(NewsNation) — Prison can become a revolving door for many people who find themselves in the criminal justice system. Many prisoners have better odds of going back within the next decade than they do staying out, and effective solutions have been difficult to come by.
“About two-thirds of released state prisoners are re-arrested within about three years from release,” said Ernesto Lopez, a research specialist at the Council on Criminal Justice, citing data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Lopez believes recidivism may be so high in America based on ex-prisoners’ environment after getting out, where they often don’t have strong social support.
“Those bonds of family members (may) break. They may not have a good place to stay or someone to contact if they need help,” he said.
However, a new study suggests that one way to lower recidivism might be for ex-prisoners to settle into immigrant-heavy communities.
For years, research has shown that immigrants often have lower rates of crime than native-born Americans. Criminologist Javier Ramos said immigrant communities may also benefit prisoners who are trying to reintegrate into society.
“Whenever you have a place with more immigrants you’re going to have stronger, what we call, community institutions. Things like churches and schools and other social services and agencies that can support and serve the immigrant population — these things all really strengthen together,” Ramos said.
To see how these communities might benefit ex-prisoners, Ramos looked at the outcomes for nearly 200,000 ex-inmates in the state of Florida.
He found that ex-felons overall have a 21% lower likelihood of recidivism when they leave prison and settle in communities where there’s a high concentration of immigrants.
The results differed across ethnic lines. Black ex-prisoners had the largest drop in recidivism risks, around 29%, while white ex-prisoners saw a reduction of around 19%.
Latinos, on the other hand, saw no reduction.
“Latino ex-prisoners actually had the lowest probability of running to prison, lower than even whites, so we’re thinking that they already have a low risk on average so they didn’t benefit as much,” Ramos said.
He did note the data lacked context on where the ex-prisoners lived before entering prison. Also, the study was specific to Florida only.
“The results themselves can only be generalizable to the state,” he said.
Jillian Snider, the policy director for the nonpartisan think tank R Street Institute’s Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties team and a lecturer at John Jay College, noted that much of the research on immigration and crime is focused on several large states with substantial South American populations like Texas, California and Florida.
She argued there needs to be more research done elsewhere — such as in places with a different set of immigrants — to see if the relationship between immigrant communities and recidivism holds.
“We don’t know if those findings are the same for… the Russian community or the Asian community that’s emigrating here because these studies have not been done in major metropolitan areas,” Snider said.
However, Lopez said that while it’s difficult to get exact data on community behaviors, one reason immigrant communities may help curb would-be repeat offenders is due to “informal social control.”
“If you have a lot of individuals who have strong social ties, they will watch out for one another, you will find that if one member of this group is misbehaving, they can speak to family members… you do get that aspect in a lot of immigrant communities,” Lopez said.
