Breaking the Chain: Research Examines Impact of Strain on Recidivism

Common sense suggests that dangerous prison conditions will deter released prisoners from committing more crimes and returning to prison. However, studies by UNC Charlotte researcher Shelley Listwan have found that harsh prison conditions may actually push prisoners the opposite direction.

The United States is home to just under 5% of the world’s population, yet holds more than 20% of the world’s prison population, with the highest incarceration rate of any country at 716 prisoners per 100,000 people, according to the World Prison Population List.

Legislative changes since the 1970s have led to tougher sentencing and longer mandatory sentences, which dramatically contributed to escalating numbers of prisoners, researchers say.

Prisoners’ inability to break the chains of behavior also worsens the recidivism rate, says Listwan, an associate professor and graduate coordinator with the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at UNC Charlotte. Listwan’s research focuses on correctional rehabilitation, criminology theory, and victimization in prison.

“Reentry into society is closely related to these huge increases in incarceration rates, and there is a very high failure rate among people who have spent time in prison and reintegrate into the community,” she says. “Almost two-thirds of people who have been incarcerated are arrested within three years after their release.”

Listwan’s targeted work on the topic began in earnest in 2003, with passage of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act. She and a colleague applied for research funding through the National Institute of Justice and began a study in which they interviewed 1,600 former prisoners in Ohio. They amassed a massive dataset.

“We asked these people, who were then living in halfway houses, about their experiences in prison, taking into consideration all that could occur in such a hostile environment,” Listwan says. “We then followed them in the community over a period of time to assess whether or not they were re-arrested or re-incarcerated. Many of them were, and we were able to understand that victimization in prison often contributed above and beyond other factors known to be related to recidivism, such as substance use, unemployment, and lack of social support.”

This dataset laid the groundwork for three recent peer-reviewed journal publications, “The Pains of Imprisonment Revisited: The Impact of Strain on Inmate Recidivism” (2013), “Poly-Victimization Risk in Prison: The Influence of Individual and Institutional Factors” (2014), and “Vicarious Victimization In Prison: Examining the Effects of Witnessing Victimization While Incarcerated on Offender Reentry” (2016).

The first paper examined the salience of strain theory in examining re-entry outcomes. Listwan identified three strains in prison environments: direct victimization, the perception of a threatening prison environment, and hostile relationships with correctional officers. She found that the three strains were significantly related to arrest and, with the exception of negative relations with officers, to re-incarceration.

“Those who perceived the prison environment as more hostile are more likely to be arrested in the community,” the first study concluded. “Low social support [also] increases likelihood of arrest, [and] reported negative relations with other inmates as measured by experience of direct victimization suggested 32% greater odds of being recommitted to prison.”

Her most recent paper, published with colleagues at Georgia State University, echoed the earlier findings.

The research focused on the impact on prisoners who vicariously experienced victimization of others. Specifically, “witnessing theft significantly increased the odds of a respondent having any of the negative criminal justice outcomes” and “of all the types of victimization, witnessing sexual victimization appears to be most related to post-release outcomes,” the study indicates.

“The general public thinks we shouldn’t incentivize prisoners – through offering amenities or education,” Listwan says. “People think we should make the prison environment harsh so they’ll never want to come back. But that is not the way that we change behavior. Punishing behavior without changing the circumstances surrounding why someone committed crime in the first place will not lead to positive outcomes.”

Listwan points out that psychological research on changing behavior emphasizes therapeutic-like rehabilitation styles, not punishment. “Yet for some reason in criminal justice, there’s a disconnect from this idea. Harsh conditions simply don’t fix the root causes of crime.”

Listwan earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology in the mid-1990s, around the same time incarceration rates were spiraling and the criminal justice academic field was growing popular. The idea of treatment for offenders piqued her interest, pushing her to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees in criminal justice.

Today, Listwan works with multiple agencies in Mecklenburg County and nationally, both presenting research and consulting around best practices in corrections for changing offender behavior. Her dataset has also been a resource used by researchers around the country. Currently, one of her master’s degree students is using it to examine whether prisoners’ coping styles can impact them following release.

In addition to her work on correctional rehabilitation and victimization in prison, Listwan has been the principal investigator on the Mecklenburg County Frequent User Service Enhancement (FUSE) Pilot Evaluation since 2013. She has received funding to study and evaluate the effectiveness of the FUSE program, an interagency effort providing supportive housing to individuals who cycle between the criminal justice and homeless shelter systems.

She and two other colleagues have just received funding from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). “The research will examine whether traumatic experiences among juveniles have an influence on their trajectories, and whether or not providing them trauma-informed care services can reduce the chance that they’ll go on to be adult offenders,” Listwan says. “So the research in offender rehabilitation has definitely flourished into many different areas, and it is exciting to see where we will go next.”

Words: Tyler Harris | Image: Lynn Roberson