From Custody to Community: Post-Release Supervision and Re-Offending

Markus Gehrsitz (), Sam Grant and Stuart McIntyre
Additional contact information
Markus Gehrsitz: University of Strathclyde
Sam Grant: University of Strathclyde
Stuart McIntyre: University of Strathclyde

No 18682, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: Many criminal offenders are managed in the community. We combine a natural experiment with administrative data from England and Wales to assess a key community correctional policy: post-release supervision. We find that supervision reduces re-offending in the first four weeks after prison release by 15%, in part due to the incapacitation of prolific offenders who are recalled to prison for violations of their probation terms. Supervision also causes a 5.5% reduction in re-offending three years after release. This effect persistence, which is even stronger for first-time prisoners, suggests that post-release supervision is a cost-efficient way to induces genuine behavioural change.

Keywords: crime; re-offending; probation; supervision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H50 J18 K14 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18682.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18682

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().