Recidivism and the Habitual Offender

In one line

A small minority of offenders commits a large majority of offences, and the strongest predictor of reoffending is having been punished before, which is a finding about the punishment as much as about the offender.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: recidivism is the commission of a further offence by a person previously convicted; the habitual offender is a statutory category attracting enhanced punishment and, under some State legislation, registration and restriction; and the criminological significance of recidivism is that a small proportion of offenders accounts for a large proportion of offences, so that identifying and diverting that group is worth more than any general measure.

The concentration finding

The finding. In every cohort study in which it has been looked for, a small fraction of the group, typically around six per cent of the whole birth cohort and under a fifth of those who offend at all, accounts for well over half of all recorded offences.

Why it matters more than anything else in this module. It means that offending is not evenly spread. Most people who offend do so once or twice and stop. A small group persists, and it is that group that produces most of the harm.

And the policy consequence is double edged. It supports concentrating resources on a small identified group, which is efficient. It also invites exactly the pre-emptive control the Positive School's critics warned about, since the identification of a persistent offender before he has persisted is prediction, and prediction of individuals in criminology is weak.

Why people reoffend

Because the conditions are unchanged. A person released to the same locality, the same associates, the same absence of employment and the same dependence has had nothing altered except that he now has a record.

Because of the record itself. A conviction closes employment, tenancy and credit, which is the labelling mechanism operating through material consequences rather than through identity.

Because prison supplies associations. Sutherland's mechanism: custody concentrates people who define the law as an obstacle, for months at a time.

Because the intervening period was wasted. An undertrial or a convict who receives no training, no treatment for dependence and no assistance on release has spent the period accumulating disadvantage.

And because a few offenders have the early-onset profile described in the age-crime chapter: difficulties beginning in early childhood, poor self-control, school failure and early offending, which is the life-course persistent group.

The habitual offender in Indian law

Enhanced punishment. The general penal law and several special statutes provide heavier punishment for a person previously convicted. The anti-corruption statute has its own provision for a habitual offender, and the narcotics statute provides the death penalty for certain repeat offences.