Housing Instability, Recidivism, and Reentry Among Returning Citizens from Washington DC’s Department of Corrections
Open AccessIndividuals leaving state and federal prisons, as well as local jails, reenter United States society every day. These transitions from correctional facilities are very difficult for many overlapping reasons. By definition, people returning from prisons have the primary challenge and stigma of a criminal record, a significant “social disability” (Middlemass 2017). Criminal convictions are not the only impediment to meaningful reintegration into key elements of mainstream life, as demonstrated by those reentering from jail, a population who do not necessarily have criminal convictions. Coming out of jail or prison typically leaves people facing disadvantages including homelessness or housing instability, unemployment, substance abuse, mental illness, disrupted relationships, and lack of financial capacity for successful reintegration. Some of these impediments reflect influences for initial criminal justice system entanglement, but these are typically worsened by the experiences of incarceration and then legal, economic, and social barriers upon release. Among the most immediate and persistent challenges is to find and retain safe, secure, habitable, and affordable housing. The challenge of adequate housing for people returning from prison, and the relationship among housing insecurity, reentry, and recidivism, is a growing area of research as well as practical and policy concern. What is less well-examined is reentry and recidivism for people leaving jails. This study adds to the criminological and housing literature on the topic of reentry and recidivism for returning citizens from jail, focusing on housing and housing instability as formerly institutionalized people return to society and adjust to post-incarceration life. To examine the intersection between housing instability/homelessness and recidivism for people reentering society, this study uses a 2015 to 2019 administrative dataset from the DC Department of Corrections (DC DOC), commonly known as the DC Jail, and analyzes it using a multinomial logistic regression model. The statistical analysis was applied to examine the extent to which recidivism among DC jail residents was associated with housing as well as other predictive factors such as educational attainment, employment status, and other demographic characteristics. In addition to this statistical approach, GIS mapping was used to identify to which parts of Washington, DC people released from jail return, and how the locations of return related to the availability, or not, of housing services and temporary shelters available to returning citizens.
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