Study Links Prison Conditions and Recidivism Rates
Hard time is supposed to be hard. But a new study says harsher prison conditions also make criminals measurably more likely to offend again.
The study tracks nearly a thousand people released from federal prisons in 1987. Those whose federal inmate classification scores just barely landed them in low-security (rather than the cushier minimum- security) lockup ended up back in the pokey nearly twice as often as inmates whose scores were slightly lower.
Academic Article: “Does Prison Harden Inmates?” Chen (Yale University) and Shapiro (University of Chicago)
As reported in The Atlantic Monthly.