Indicator: 51 - Youth Success After Leaving Juvenile Justice System

Why This Is Important

Families, young people, and the professionals and volunteers who work in the juvenile justice system all hope that young people who enter that system do not become repeat offenders (recidivists). Committing a repeat offense increases the odds that youth will also experience other negative outcomes and injure the quality of life in their community.

Where We Stand

Maine’s Department of Corrections (MDOC) defines “recidivism” as “the proportion of juveniles who have been adjudicated for the first time who are adjudicated of a second offense during supervision or within one year of release from MDOC supervision.” Youth who are rearrested but not re-adjudicated are not considered recidivists. MDOC uses the one-year time frame because it is unlikely to have influence over a youth who has been released from its supervision for more than 12 months.

Using this definition of recidivism, the 962 youth between ages 9 and 18 who were first adjudicated in calendar 1998 for a juvenile crime had a recidivism rate of 34% as of March 15, 2002. Of the 936 youth first adjudicated in calendar 1999, 32% had been adjudicated for a second offense by that date. As more youth first adjudicated in 1998 and 1999 are released from MDOC supervision in the future, these recidivism rates are likely to rise further.

The 1998 and 1999 MDOC reports on youth recidivism also provide other basic information on youth who were first adjudicated in those years. Just over four-fifths were male, and almost all were white. About four-fifths (78%) were between 14 and 17 years of age. Just over half (57% of the 1998 cohort and 55% of the 1999 cohort) were adjudicated for property offenses, and 6-7% for drug offenses. Over two-thirds were prosecuted for misdemeanors.

Data Sources and Context

In 2001, the Department launched a new statewide recidivism database for juveniles under its supervision. Data from this source was released in the Department’s Juvenile Recidivism Reports for 1998 and 1999, the first in a series of annual reports that will examine juvenile recidivism data in Maine. The Juvenile Recidivism Reports are available on-line at:
http://muskie.usm.maine.edu/justiceresearch/current/reports.htm.