Recidivism

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Forty percent of all persons with an initial event¹ in 2016 relapsed into crime within three years. The percentage that relapsed among women was 28 percent and 43 percent among men. The statistics show minor changes over time.

Twenty percent of all persons with an initial event where women and 80 percent men.

The risk of relapsing into crime clearly increases with the number of previous adjudications². Ninety one percent among those with nine or more previous adjudications relapsed into crime within three years. Among those without any previous adjudication 22 percent relapsed into crime within three years.

The median number of days to the first relapse into crime was eight months and one week (253 days) 2016. The median number of days for women was 267 and 250 for men.

It is common that a liberty depriving sanction in the initial event is followed by a liberty depriving sanction in the relapse event. Almost 50 percent had been deprived of liberty some time prior to the relapse event when previous adjudications 5 years before the initial event are included.

About the statistics

The recidivism statistics aim to give an overview of the level, structure and development of relapses into crime. The statistics also present measures such as time to first relapse.

The statistics is divided into to two products, one final and one preliminary recidivism statistics. The difference is the follow up time and the time for collection of conviction decisions that include relapses into crime. These time periods are three years each in the final statistics and one year each in the preliminary statistics. This gives the possibility to present more reliable final statistics compared to the preliminary statistics.

¹) An initial event is a release from prison, discharge from closed institutional youth care, discharge from forensic psychiatric care, completed intensive supervision with electronic monitoring or court sentencing with legal force or conviction decisions with other sanctions.

²) Previous adjudications mean court sentencing with legal force or conviction decisions 5 years before the initial event.