Criminal Sanctions and Recidivism

In this study, re­con­vic­tion is in­vest­ig­ated for all per­sons ju­di­cially con­victed in Ger­many. In­form­a­tion is col­lec­ted on the type of of­fense, the type and amount of sanc­tion, pos­sible pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, the re­gion in which the of­fense took place, and so­cio-demo­graph­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the of­fend­er such as age and gender. Us­ing this data, it is pos­sible, for ex­ample, to de­term­ine how of­ten re­lapses oc­cur in the case of vi­ol­ent or sexu­al of­fenses. Moreover, the res­ults al­low for fre­quently ex­pressed crim­in­al policy views on dif­fer­ent re­cidiv­ism rates for dif­fer­ent types of sanc­tions to be bet­ter veri­fied. It should be noted, however, that ini­tially only the fre­quency of re­lapse can be de­term­ined, no caus­al re­la­tion­ships can be made. Fines are gen­er­ally im­posed by the courts for less ser­i­ous of­fenses and for of­fend­ers with more fa­vor­able ‘so­cial fore­casts’; those sen­tenced to pris­on are there­fore more likely to dis­play a kind of ‘neg­at­ive se­lec­tion’, mean­ing that their more fre­quent re­con­vic­tion is not sur­pris­ing. What is, however, sur­pris­ing, is that re­lapses oc­cur re­l­at­ively rarely. If one con­trols for this se­lec­tion ef­fect, then no dif­fer­ence in the re­lapse risk ac­cord­ing to types of sanc­tion can be de­term­ined.

In the forth wave, per­sons who were either giv­en a non-cus­todi­al sanc­tion in 2004, 2007, 2010, or 2013 or were re­leased from pris­on in one of these years were in­vest­ig­ated with­in a three-year or twelve-year peri­od to see wheth­er they were con­victed again.

The fol­low­ing points are some of the res­ults of the study thus far:

• Slightly more than a third of those sen­tenced or re­leased from pris­on were re­con­victed with­in three years.
• A re­con­vic­tion did not fre­quently lead to re­im­pris­on­ment, but mostly to milder sanc­tions.
• Per­sons who are re­leased from pris­on are most likely to re­lapse, but only a quarter of those ini­tially sen­tenced to im­pris­on­ment re­turn to pris­on with­in three years.
• The re­con­vic­tion rates of those sen­tenced to pro­ba­tion are sig­ni­fic­antly lower than the re­con­vic­tion rates of those who have been re­leased from pris­on.
• Re­cidiv­ism var­ies greatly de­pend­ing on age and gender. Ad­oles­cents have the highest re­lapse rate (40%), those aged over 60 the low­est (15%). Wo­men are much less likely to re­lapse than men.
• The more of­fenses in the past, the high­er the risk of re­lapse.
• Gen­er­al re­cidiv­ism – re­gard­less of the of­fense – dif­fers greatly for dif­fer­ent of­fenses. The low­est re­cidiv­ism rate (less than 20%) is for those ini­tially con­victed of hom­icide. Of the of­fend­ers who were ini­tially con­victed of rob­bery or ag­grav­ated theft, about 50% re­lapsed.
• Of­fense-spe­cif­ic re­con­vic­tion (re­con­vic­tions for an act of the same of­fense) are much less com­mon than gen­er­al re­lapses. About 2% of vi­ol­ent sexu­al of­fend­ers re­lapsed with an­oth­er vi­ol­ent sexu­al of­fense with­in three years, 3,2% with­in six years, 3,6% within nine years, and 3,7% with­in twelve years.

The pro­ject is cur­rently be­ing sup­ple­men­ted by a fifth wave fun­ded by the DFG. The res­ults of the study will be pub­lished in 2024.

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