Attitudes of U.S. Voters toward Prisoner Rehabilitation and Reentry Policies

• NCJ Number: 215829
• Author(s): Barry Krisberg Ph.D.; Susan Marchionna
• Date Published: April 2006
• Length: 6 pages
• Corporate Author: National Council on Crime and Delinquency
• Sale Source: National Council on Crime and Delinquency
• Publication Format: Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Downloaded October 5, 2006.

Annotation

This report presents the findings from a 2006 national public opinion poll about citizen's attitudes toward the rehabilitation and reentry of nonviolent offenders into their home communities.

Abstract

Survey findings revealed that 74 percent of respondents were somewhat to very concerned about crime in their communities while 79 percent expressed concern or fear about the annual release of 700,000 prisoners into the community. The majority of respondents (87 percent) favored rehabilitative services for prisoners over a punishment-only model of corrections. A full 70 percent of respondents were in favor of services both during incarceration and following release. More than 50 percent of respondents believed that the likelihood a released prisoner would commit a new crime was about the same as it was before incarceration while 31 percent of respondents believed the likelihood of a prisoner committing a new crime was greater after a period of incarceration. The majority of respondents identified a lack of life skills, the experience of being in prison, and obstacles to reentry as the major factors impacting the likelihood of rearrest following release. Only 21 percent of respondents believed that criminality was an inherent personal characteristic. A lack of job training was identified as a significant barrier to released prisoners by 82 percent of respondents and over 90 percent of respondents identified job training, drug treatment, mental health services, family support, mentoring, and housing as important services that should be provided to prisoners. Many respondents (44 percent) believed that reentry planning should begin at sentencing. A full 78 percent of respondents were in favor of pending legislation that would allocate federal dollars for prisoner reentry programming. The survey methodology involved a validated weighting and sample procedure that netted 1,039 telephone interviews with likely voters. Interviews focused on concerns about crime in their communities and attitudes about the annual release of 700,000 prisoners into the community. Figures