Recidivism in the Caribbean

Improving the Reintegration of Jamaican Ex-prisoners

Dacia L. Leslie

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030129064
• eBook ISBN: 9783030129071
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides a detailed and practical exploration of criminal recidivism and social reintegration in Jamaica. It uses various methods to seek the authentic voices of inmates, ex-prisoners, deported migrants and practitioners, drawing on an original study to examine factors that might help ex-prisoners more successfully transition from a prison environment to life within the community. Leslie also raises important questions about the Jamaican state's capacity to meet the needs of inmates, particularly as a large number of its citizens are subject to forced repatriation to their homeland by overseas jurisdictions due to their offending.

Recidivism in the Caribbean provides a unique insight into institutional and community life in a post-colonial society, whilst linking practices theories of offender management. It will particularly appeal to criminologists and sociologists interested in tertiary crime prevention but also those interested in correctional policy and practice, punishment and deviance.

Part IContext

© The Author(s) 2019

Dacia L. LeslieRecidivism in the CaribbeanPalgrave Studies in Race, Ethnicity, Indigeneity and Criminal Justicehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12907-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Recidivism and Reintegration in Jamaica: Exploring the Nexus

Dacia L. Leslie¹

(1)

Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, The University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica

Dacia L. Leslie

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

ReintegrationRecidivismResettlementCorrectional policyRehabilitation in Jamaica

End Abstract

Introduction

This chapter focuses on the problematic nature of the nexus between recidivism and social reintegration and how this affects the Jamaican policy context. There are various operational definitions of reintegration, but one common aspect is the emphasis on the reestablishment of familial and other social ties which allow persons who leave state detention to return to the community and lead crime-free and productive lives. There is less consensus regarding the status of those who stay out of prison but are unable to sustain themselves within the community and others who should have been rehabilitated but are readmitted to correctional facilities for a different type of offence. Thus, the term ‘effective reintegration’ as used throughout the chapter denotes the leading of positive, crime-free and productive lives by persons who return to the community following their incarceration. It is a complex and multidimensional process which starts at the point of arrest and is enabled and sustained by structural, community and individual facilitators. In the absence of targeted interventions across all three spheres of influence, recidivism is likely. This chapter explores some of the policy and measurement challenges that bear upon the process of effectively reintegrating into Jamaican society.

Effectiveness Versus ‘Success’

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (2006b, p. 1) defines social reintegration as ‘support given to offenders during the period starting from prosecution to release and post-release’. This definition is drawn upon partly because of UNODC’s reputation as a global leader providing technical assistance to governments in crime prevention and criminal justice reform and the absence of an official reintegration or resettlement policy in Jamaica. Additionally, UNODC has produced handbooks which are informed by cross-country studies. Amongst these handbooks is Custodial and Non-Custodial Measures (see UNODC 2006b, p. 3), a landmark criminal justice assessment toolkit designed to help governments identify their social reintegration needs through gauging the effectiveness of existing measures to develop and inform recommendations for technical assistance interventions. The UNODC’s definition of social reintegration is therefore often drawn upon throughout the book to generate and contrast critical insight into the Jamaican experience and help identify areas for improvements.

The UNODC’s definition does not, however, give full recognition to the role of human agency in the reintegration process. As discussed in subsequent chapters, it is the case that without the cooperation and motivation of offenders, interventions are unlikely to secure the behavioural change sought (Maguire and Raynor 2006). Thus, without efforts to actively engage offenders in the change process and relying instead upon their exposure to some form of ‘treatment’ is to apply what DeJong (1997) terms a ‘deficit model’ that undervalues human agency. It also underestimates the range of crimes and sources of criminality and ignores compelling arguments that unless offenders are supportive of mainstream norms, then incarceration will not likely lead to correction (DeJong 1997).

One may also observe that the UNODC’s (2006a) definition of social reintegration does not adequately address matters of effectiveness. It ignores the importance of economic self-sufficiency, social stability and psychosocial wellbeing which the International Organization for Migration (IOM) identifies as success indicators of sustainable reintegration in the context of return migration (Graviano et al. 2017). These considerations have informed the adopted definition of effective reintegration. But this is not without consulting the extant Caribbean criminological literature which largely focuses on removed migrants (RMs).

Though previous studies have established that the contribution RMs make to Jamaica’s violent crime rate is minimal (Headley et al. 2005; Madjd-Sadjadi and Alleyne 2007), the reality is that 1757 Jamaicans were sent home in 2016, for mainly non-violent crimes. This number is the equivalent of 49 per cent of the Jamaican adult correctional population. If this movement continues and the government decides to implement a Prisoner Transfer Agreement in accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed in 2007, then it is likely that the influx of RMs will further limit correctional capacity and increase the Jamaican taxpayers’ burden. Approximately 45 cents out of each Jamaican dollar goes towards paying the country’s international debt (Hall 2013). Therefore, a critical challenge which the Jamaican government now faces has to do with using finite resources innovatively to find ways of preventing the recidivism of Jamaicans who are about to be or have been removed from overseas jurisdictions.

In sum, identifying a realistic indicator of effective reintegration is a thorny question, and this book proposes a nuanced approach whereby the ability of ex-prisoners to stay out of prison may be considered successful reintegration. This achievement does not mean, however, that those persons leaving prison have met some or all the requisites to become effectively reintegrated into society or lead positive, crime-free and productive lives upon returning to the community. As such, persons who are desirous of making the transition must seek to become connected to prosocial environments to allow familial and community settings to influence and support their legitimate behaviour (White 2011, p. 1). These social ties must then empower them to enjoy the liberty of life and other inalienable freedoms without succumbing to earlier or new patterns of offending, that is, recidivism.

Reliability of the Recidivism Indicator

The rate of recidivism in Jamaica is measured by the percentage of persons who return to the custody or care of the correctional service. Previously, return to prison was the measure of recidivism employed by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS ). But following the Auditor General’s Department’s (AGD) (2014) report, the measure of recidivism was revised and now includes non-custodial sentences. At the very least, the current measure provides some indication of the service’s capacity to rehabilitate inmates. But to use it as the sole outcome-based indicator of correctional success is to ignore other measures such as the employability of ex-inmates who benefit from skills training interventions (Ubah 2014). Furthermore, institutional-based interventions alone cannot guarantee the reform of persons who come into the custody and care of the correctional service. Thus, the percentage growth rate of recidivism as shown in Fig. 1.1 is an indicator of the performance of the criminal justice system in its entirety, not just the correctional service.

Fig. 1.1

Prison recidivism growth rate 2007–2016. Source: Growth rate calculated with figures supplied by the Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica, 2011, 2015, 2017, 2018

To illustrate, Jamaica has one of the highest murder rates in the world (49 per 100,000) and the lowest prison population rate in the Anglophone Caribbean (138 per 100,000). This incongruity suggests that this developing country may be doing poorly in terms of sentencing dangerous offenders or that the most use is being made of available alternatives to imprisonment. Indeed, the declining incidence of prison recidivism since 2012, as shown in Fig. 1.2, seems to be an indication, prima facie, of success as it tells us that at least people are staying out of the custody of the correctional service. All the same, the reliability of this success measure warrants interrogation as there are various factors to consider that might exist outside the correctional service’s immediate sphere of influence. For example, due to the absence of reliable criminal justice databases in the Jamaican context, it is difficult to determine the combination of factors that account for the surge in the growth rate of recidivism in 2008, 2010 and 2012 (see Fig. 1.1) or how many of the 234 per 100,000 cases of serious victimisation recorded in 2016 involved incidence of recidivism and resulted in a sentence of imprisonment.

Fig. 1.2

Incidence of prison recidivism 2006–2016. Source: Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica, 2011, 2015, 2017, 2018

Recidivism, as used here, refers to reoffending behaviour or acts of repeat criminality which may or may not be self-reported and persistent. Variability in offending patterns over a criminal career implies that there are likely to be offence-free periods or primary desistance before an offender recidivates (Thornberry 2005). There is, therefore, no certainty of the pattern(s) offending will assume or the number of times an individual is likely to reoffend or desist over a life course, except at the end of a lifetime (ibid.). We can assume a dark figure of crime exists (i.e. unrecorded, undetected and unreported cases of offending and recidivism) based on what we...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Context
• Part II. Facilitators
• Part III. Barriers
• Part IV. A Way Forward
• Back Matter