Recidivism in Australia : findings and future research - Australian ...

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Recidivism in Australia: findings and future research
(continued)
Selected recidivism research 1995–2006
Publication
year Title Key recidivism findings Comments
Author
The definition of reoffending meant that
multiple charges were aggregated into
apprehension episodes.
This research paper looked at the effectiveness
of youth justice conferencing in reducing
reoffending. Reoffending was measured for 89
juvenile offenders as any new official incident to
which the police responded by arrest or
apprehension after the date of participation in
the conference. The observation period was for
between eight and 12 months. The results were:
Hayes H & Daly K 2003 Youth justice
conferencing
and reoffending
• 60% of the juveniles had no official contact
with the police after their participation in
the justice conference
• 17% had one additional contact and 23%
had two or more contact incidents.
Recidivism was retrospectively measured
as prior offending and prior imprisonment.
This study involved an interviewer administered
survey of 2,135 male prisoners from Western
Australia, Queensland, The Northern Territory
and Tasmania. The study asked prisoners to
recall their commission of a range of offence
types, including how often on average they
engaged in those offences and when they
started first and regular commission of
each offence.
• 30% of adult male prisoners had a prior
history of juvenile detention
• Prisoners had been, on average, charged
41 times, convicted 34 times and sentenced
to prison 15 times prior to their current
episode of imprisonment. The current
episode of imprisonment was, on average,
these males offender’s third.
2003 Drugs and crime:
a study of
incarcerated
male offenders
Makkai T &
Payne J