Recidivism in Jails and Prisons

The room measures nine feet long by six feet wide. Twenty-seven-old Johnny sits in the room with his hands on his head and thinks to himself: “Why am I here?” A plate of fried shrimp and an ice cold coca-cola sit uneaten on a small metal table while a man with a bible sits outside the room speaking in whispered tones. Two burly men appear dressed in crisp blue shirts and pressed gray pants; one says to Johnny, “It’s time.”

Johnny was in the worst room imaginable. He was in prison, and he was in a deathwatch cell. His last meal on earth was served, and now it was time to die. Why did Johnny commit a crime that would have led him to this precarious situation? What factors of recidivism could lead a person like Johnny to spend most of his life in and out of jail?

The definition of recidivism is “a tendency to lapse into a previous pattern of behavior, especially a pattern of criminal habits” (Dictionary. Com). The three prevailing reasons for recidivism are; peer pressure, environment and past criminal history. For Johnny and countless others like him, jails and prisons are like a turnstile at a subway station. Jail becomes a coming of age ritual that takes hold and becomes part of one’s being.

A child needs a sense of belonging in any environment. To be loved or to be cared for are the most primal of feelings for which a child yearns. By not obtaining love and attention at home, a child or young teen is most likely to seek it elsewhere. When a peer offers acceptance in the form of a dare, the bait of a crime is tossed and the tiny fish is hooked. A refusal to participate can lead to isolation; whereupon, inclusion is paramount to an already neglected psyche.

Here, our “dead man walking” Johnny, grew up in the rough and tumble housing projects of Red Hook Brooklyn. He lived with his mother who worked two jobs to provide the basic needs for him and his four sisters. Johnny’s father was in prison where he had been locked up since Johnny was an infant. Role models of Johnny’s youth consisted of drug dealers who wore gold on their teeth, sported the latest footwear on their feet, and had the fattest wads of cash in their pocket. In his environment, the combination of peer pressure and the allure of easy money were too great; in Johnny’s world, education or crime were the first class tickets out of the projects.