Prison Versus Probation in California - Implications for Crime and Offender Recidivism

The sample consisted of 511 males from a previous 1985 study of felony probationers and 511 imprisoned offenders matched by year of sentencing (1980), gender, county of conviction, offense, and a score reflecting factors associated with sentencing decisions. In the 2-year followup period, 72 percent of the prisoners were rearrested, as compared with 63 percent of the probationers. This positive association between imprisonment and recidivism could be attributed either to the prison experience or to society's response to an ex-prisoner. Because of their incapacitation, prisoners committed an estimated 20 percent fewer crimes than did probationers during a 3-year period. Analysis of the relative costs of probation and prison showed that the system spent about twice as much on supervising and reprocessing prisoners as it did on probationers. Imprisonment did not deter most offenders, but it did reduce crime, although at very high cost to the criminal justice system. Graphs, tables, and approximately 70 references.