Recidivism

The term recidivism falls under the umbrella of Criminology, which “embraces environmental, hereditary or psychology causes of criminal behaviour, modes of investigation and conviction and the efficacy of punishment.” It is considered as a critical aspect of the Criminal Justice System and refers to ‘repeated or habitual criminal behaviour’ (Taylor, 1984). The assumption made here is that, when the crime rate increases, the number of individuals committing crimes increases. In other words the rate of recidivism is increasing.

Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behaviour after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behaviour, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behaviour. It is also known as the percentage of former prisons who are arrested. Dr. Ken Pryce (1982), states that ‘recidivism simple means repetitive criminal or deviate behaviour among low income offenders and usually implies that the treatment or punishment has failed to bring about a permanent change or cure.’
Recidivism rates vary according to individual and contextual/social level risk factors. In this study the authors have identified only three individual level risk factors which include previous history dynamics, psychopathic disorder and educational performance and school discipline. The contextual or social (aggregate) level risk variables comprises of family factors, community factors and peer influence.