Not all released prisoners re-offend at the same rate, and understanding why some re-offend and others do not can inform the design of effective re-entry initiatives. This component of the analysis process requires identifying the salient characteristics of those who are at greatest risk of re-offending to target resources at those who share those characteristics. Even when resources are plentiful, it is often not a wise expenditure of tax dollars to provide the same level of services to all individuals released from prison or jail. Instead, efforts should be focused on providing intensive services to high-risk individuals as soon after release as possible, when the impact of those efforts will be greatest.

Data on the characteristics of released prisoners who re-offend may be obtained through the department of corrections, provided that the it can isolate data on those prisoners who have been returned to prison based on the commission of a new crime. Policymakers requesting data through the department of corrections should specifically inquire about whether prisoners released after serving time for a revocation are identified in some way in the database. Alternatively, the data can be analyzed to compare the characteristics of those who had been incarcerated multiple times in the past versus to those who are serving their first or second prison term.

Some agencies deliberately collect data on those who are returned to prison for the explicit purpose of informing prison and postrelease policies aimed at improving re-entry outcomes. Illinois corrections staff interview individuals who had their supervision status revoked (due to either the violation of a condition of supervision, such as having a positive drug test, or because of a new crime) at intake to learn more about their characteristics and their experiences during the period when they were in the community. A recent analysis of those data collected in 2001 and 2002 found that 43 percent were unemployed at the time of their violation, suggesting that increasing employment opportunities and developing initiatives to support continued, long-term employment of released prisoners may have an impact on recidivism. ^[1]  

Absent any systematic data collection effort on the part of a jurisdiction's corrections agency, the re-entry team can turn to research at the national level to identify characteristics that indicate those prisoners who are at greatest risk of re-offending. Perhaps one of the most informative studies on general factors associated with recidivism was conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 1994. The BJS study tracked 272,111 inmates from 15 states for a period of three years from their prison release. The study found that age, prior criminal record, and time under supervision (defined as the first six months of supervision) accounted for the majority of the variance in the rate of re-arrest (see sidebar, Characteristics of Those at Greatest Risk of Re-offending, for more details).