The Maryland Prisoner Reentry Relocation Experiment

描述（由申请人提供）：每年有超过70万名囚犯从美国监狱获释，估计这些人中有一半将在短短三年内重返监狱。刑事累犯率高的公共健康后果是可怕的。累犯往往是高利率的刑事罪犯谁贡献了大量的总数 一个社区的犯罪率。反过来，邻里犯罪，特别是暴力，是一种有压力的条件，有各种有害的健康后果。美国累犯率高的一个原因是，许多刑满释放人员回到他们入狱前居住的同样的居住环境，与同样的犯罪同伴和同样的犯罪机会在一起。通过随机对照试验，本研究旨在探讨反事实的情况下，也就是说，对刑事累犯的影响，居住迁移远离前社区，使更多的住房援助。与马里兰州公共安全和惩教服务部合作，项目研究人员将自愿假释参与者随机分配到治疗组，这些治疗组通过相当于公平市场租金的住房补贴的位置来区分：1）实验组的搬家者将获得仅在指定地理区域使用的住房补贴。在监禁前居住在巴尔的摩市的罪犯将获得乔治王子县的住房补贴，该县距离巴尔的摩超过25英里。 居住在乔治王子县的罪犯将获得在巴尔的摩市使用的补贴。 2)居住者的住房比较组将获得住房补贴，用于他们在监禁前居住的司法管辖区。在全面实施之前，项目小组将对40个案例进行试点测试，预计每组有125名参与者。该试验将允许项目tem验证足够数量的参与者入组该项目，并评估这些参与者遵守随机分配治疗的程度。如果假释犯居住在与监禁前不同的地理区域时，犯罪累犯的可能性较低，那么消除居住搬迁的制度障碍可能会提高总体公共安全，同时降低监禁成本。特别是，公共房屋当局为释囚提供更多住屋机会，尤其是在离释囚过往居住地方较远的地方，可能会有成效。此外，如果住宅搬迁减少累犯的可能性，那么在许多州限制（或至少不鼓励）住宅流动性的假释政策的变化可能是值得追求的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): More than 700,000 prisoners are released from U.S. prisons each year, and estimates suggest that half of these individuals will be back in prison within just three years. The public health consequences of high levels of criminal recidivism are dire. Recidivists tend to be high rate criminal offenders who contribute substantially to the total volume of crime in a community. In turn, neighborhood crime, particularly violence, is a stressful condition that has a variety of detrimental health consequences. One reason for high rates of recidivism in the United States is the fact that many former prisoners return home to the same residential environment, with the same criminal peers and same criminal opportunities, where they resided before incarceration. Through a randomized controlled trial, this study aims to examine the counterfactual situation-that is, the effects on criminal recidivism of residential migration far away from former neighborhoods that is made possible by greater access to housing assistance. Working in collaboration with the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, project researchers will randomly assign voluntary parolee participants to treatment groups that are distinguished by the location of a housing subsidy equivalent to the fair market rent: 1) The experimental group of movers will receive a housing subsidy for use only in a designated geographic area. Offenders who resided in Baltimore City prior to incarceration will be provided a subsidy for housing in Prince George's County, which is located more than 25 miles from Baltimore. Offenders who resided in Prince George's County will be provided a subsidy for use in Baltimore City. 2) The housing comparison group of stayers will receive a housing subsidy for use in the jurisdiction where they resided immediately prior to incarceration. Before undertaking full implementation with a projected 125 participants per group, the project team will conduct a pilot test of 40 cases. This pilot will allow the project tem to verify enrollment of a sufficient number of participants into the project, and to assess the extent to which these participants comply with their randomly assigned treatments. If the likelihood of criminal recidivism is lower when parolees reside in a geographic area different from where they resided prior to incarceration, then removing the institutional barriers to residential relocation may enhance public safety in aggregate and lower incarceration costs at the same time. In particular, it may be fruitful for public housing authorities to provide more housing opportunities for ex- offenders, especially in locations some distance from where the offender resided in the past. Moreover, if residential relocation reduces the likelihood of recidivism, then changes to the parole policies in many states that restrict (or at least discourage) residential mobility may be worth pursuing.