Inmates‘ perceptions, recidivism, and theories of crime

Crime and recidivism impose large and preventable costs on the society. Reintegration of released inmates to the society is problematic because due to their stigma they suffer from a consistent mistreatment. An important but forgotten step on the way to tackle recidivism is an investigation of the validity of the underlying theories of recidivism because they bring different policy implications. We propose a survey/lab-in-the-field experiment which will assess their relative explanatory power and will allow us to observe how inmates’ perceptions change over time and how they predict future behavior. We will assess the Becker's theory of rational criminal, counter-culture identity formation, procedural justice, and over-optimism. We plan to visit the prisons twice and re-test participants after one year.