Wallace Danielle, Wang Xia
Center for Violence Prevention and Community Solutions at Arizona State University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, USA.
SSM Popul Health. 2020 Mar 20;11:100569. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100569. eCollection 2020 Aug.
Incarceration is definitively linked to poor health, and upon release from prison, many individuals experience difficulty in maintaining good health. Given the complexity of the reentry process, one's health status, both in and out of prison, likely influences additional aspects of reentry, such as abstaining from crime or adhering to parole terms. The purpose of this study is to determine whether in-prison physical and mental health, as well as changes to an individual's health upon release from prison, are related to the likelihood of recidivating. We employ the Serious and Violent Reentry Initiative (SVORI) data, a multi-state sample of formerly incarcerated males who are followed from prison to release into the community and interviewed about a number of post-prison release issues, including health. We use hierarchical logistic and multinomial regressions, where survey waves are nested within people, to assess if in-prison physical and mental health and post-release changes to health are associated with recidivism in two ways: general re-incarceration and re-incarceration due to either a technical violation of parole or a new conviction. With right-censoring due to recidivism or "failure," our final sample size is 2180 person-periods (i.e., waves) nested within 871 respondents. We find that better physical health, both in-prison and changes in health post-release, is related to a higher likelihood of recidivating. Better mental health, both in-prison and changes to mental health post-release, is related to a decrease in the likelihood of recidivating. Individuals with poor mental health in-prison who make significant improvements after release see the largest reduction in their odds of recidivating. Finally, the combination of better mental health in-prison and increases in mental health post-release is associated with reductions in the likelihood of re-offending for both technical violations and new convictions. In sum, in-prison health continues to influence individuals after prison and is associated with their odds of recidivating, thus contributing to the churning of individuals through the prison system.
监禁与健康状况不佳有着明确的关联，许多人在出狱后难以保持良好的健康状态。鉴于重新融入社会过程的复杂性，一个人在狱中及出狱后的健康状况可能会影响重新融入社会的其他方面，比如避免犯罪或遵守假释条件。本研究的目的是确定狱中身心健康状况以及出狱后个人健康状况的变化是否与再次犯罪的可能性相关。我们使用了“严重及暴力犯罪者重新融入社会倡议”（SVORI）的数据，该数据来自一个多州样本，样本中的男性曾被监禁，从监狱到社区都对他们进行跟踪，并就包括健康在内的一些出狱后问题进行访谈。我们使用分层逻辑回归和多项回归分析，其中调查波次嵌套在个体之中，以两种方式评估狱中身心健康状况以及出狱后健康状况的变化与再次犯罪之间的关联：一般重新入狱以及因技术性违反假释规定或新定罪而重新入狱。由于再次犯罪或“失败”导致的右删失，我们的最终样本量为871名受访者中的2180个人时期（即波次）。我们发现，无论是狱中还是出狱后健康状况的改善，都与再次犯罪的可能性增加有关。无论是狱中还是出狱后心理健康状况的改善，都与再次犯罪的可能性降低有关。狱中心理健康状况不佳但出狱后有显著改善的个体，其再次犯罪的几率下降幅度最大。最后，狱中更好的心理健康状况与出狱后心理健康状况的改善相结合，与因技术性违规和新定罪而再次犯罪的可能性降低相关。总之，狱中健康状况在出狱后仍会影响个人，并与他们再次犯罪的几率相关，从而导致个人在监狱系统中反复进出。
