A natural experiment of the consequences of concentrating former prisoners in the same neighborhoods
Abstract
There are ∼5 million formerly imprisoned individuals residing in US neighborhoods, yet this population is highly concentrated in a relatively small number of neighborhoods, typically within metropolitan areas. I find that concentrating former prisoners in the same neighborhoods leads to significantly higher recidivism rates than if ex-prisoners were more dispersed across neighborhoods. The reasons why ex-prisoners concentrate in a select few urban neighborhoods include personal factors such as social ties to the neighborhood, but they also include institutional and structural barriers such as parole policies and housing market dynamics. Policy solutions that disperse the geographic concentration of former prisoners, while leading to some geographic displacement of recidivism, would likely yield a net reduction in recidivism in aggregate.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- June 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1501987112
- Bibcode:
- 2015PNAS..112.6943K