Running head: RECIDIVISM USH CLIENTS

Recidivism Report of United Self Help Clients from April 2016 to April 2018

Britta Johnson, M.A.

Julie Takishima-Lacasa, Ph.D.

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

 Abstract

This paper presents recidivism rates for clients of United Self Help (USH) that have maxed out

of the state prison system in Hawaiʻi from April 2016 to April 2018. USH is a non-profit

organization that provides social services to support returning citizens by means of obtaining

transportation, clothing, finding housing, and peer support. Implications of these findings are

discussed.

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 Recidivism Report of United Self Help Clients

from April 2016 to March 2018

Introduction

United Self Help (USH) is a peer run, peer support organization that began in 1984. The

organization offers support groups, peer mentoring, and mental health education to help

individuals with mental illness cope with life and overcome stigma. USH received a prison

outreach grant to provide reentry planning and pick-up for individuals who serve their maximum

sentences at Halawa Correctional Facility (HCF), Waiawa Correctional Facility (WCF), and

Women’s Community Correctional Center (WCCC) on the island of Oʻahu. Individuals that

"max out" have served the full sentence adjudicated to them by the court system. USH offers the

following services:

1. In-reach Interview: USH staff uses a biopsychosocial reentry assessment tool to gauge
the needs of the returning citizen.
2. Transportation: USH staff will pick the returning citizen up if s/he does not have
transportation.
3. Commissary Check: USH staff will take returning citizen to cash their commissary
checks.
4. Bus Pass: Using a disability application, USH staff helps returning citizens obtain a 6-
month bus pass for $15.00.
5. Clothing: Typically returning citizens are given only one set of clothes upon release, so
USH staff will take them to a charitable organization.
6. Housing: USH staff will take returning citizens to the Institute for Human Services (IHS),
a local shelter that also provides many services (e.g., food, employment opportunities).
7. Sex Offender Registry: If the returning citizen is a sex offender, USH staff will take them
to get register as required within 3 days of release.
8. EBT: USH staff will take returning citizens from IHS to the Department of Human
Services (DHS) office to apply for a EBT card.

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 9. Cell Phone: USH staff help returning citizens apply for an “Obama Phone”. There is an
application process that takes 10 days to process, but soon after, the offender receives a
cellphone with 500 minutes on it.
10. Health Insurance: USH staff will call Legal Aid or goes to the MedQuest office to aid the
returning citizen to apply for health insurance coverage.
11. Birth Certificate: If a returning citizen does not have any form of identification, USH
staff will take them to the Department of Health (DOH) to apply for a copy of their birth
certificate.
12. Social Security and ID Cards: Once a returning citizen has a birth certificate, USH staff
will bring him/her to the Social Security Office to obtain their social security card and
state ID card.
13. Employment: USH staff help returning citizen work with the employment office at IHS.
Additionally, USH distributes a list of employers who hire people with criminal records.

The purpose of the current study is to conduct an analysis of the recidivism rates of max out

USH clients that were released between April 2016 and April 2018.

Methods

Participants

Every month the Department of Public Safety (PSD) provides USH a list of individuals that

are maxing out of their sentences and being released from incarceration. These individuals

eligible for USH services are then interviewed by USH staff to assess their individual reentry

needs. The current sample is comprised of individuals that served their full maximum sentences

in HCF or WCF and recieved services from USH. Seventeen clients were removed from this

analysis due to missing or problematic data, resulting in a final sample of 338 clients. Table 1

provides demographic information for the final sample, which was entirely male and majority

Asian/Pacific Islander (71.3%) with a mean age of 43.19 years.

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Table 1. Sample Characteristics

Characteristic n %

Sex
Male 338 100%
Female 0 0%
Race
Asian/Pacific Islander 241 71.30%
White 63 18.64%
Black 18 5.33%
Other 12 3.55%
Undisclosed/Unknown 2 0.59%
Alaska Native/American Indian 1 0.30%
Age
Mean 43.19 years
Median 41.58 years
Mode 29.83 years

Procedures

Data from both the PSD referral list and the USH client lists were compared to identify the

final sample of individuals that maxed out of the prison system and received services from USH

from April 2016 to March 2018. The PSD’s OffenderTrakÔ database (the software used by all

correctional facilities in the state of Hawaiʻi) was used to identify each of the 338 participants to

record new rebookings for those individuals as of June 2018. Rebookings are incarcerations and

indicate a new arrest or revocation of probation or parole, but not necessarily a conviction for a

new crime. If individuals were rebooked and released more than once within the time span of

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this study, only the first date of rebooking after the initial max out date was used for the purposes

of this study.1

For this analysis, we examined recidivism rates over four time periods indicating the

amount of time elapsed since max out release: (1) less than 1 month, (2) 1 to 6 months, (3) 7 - 12

months, and (4) 13 months to 24 months. The breakdown of these recidvism “cohorts” are

detailed in Appendix 1.

Results

Of the 338 clients served by USH between April 2016 and March 2018, 96 (28.4%) had

been rebooked as of March 2018. Table 2 provides demographic information for this sample of

92 individuals. The sample was predominantly Asian/Pacific Islander with a mean age of 39.13

years.

Table 2: Characteristics of Individuals Who Recidivated

Characteristic n %

Race
Asian/Pacific Islander 74 77.08%
White 16 16.67%
Black 3 3.13%
Other 3 3.13%
Age
Mean 39.13 years
Median 35.82 years
Mode 35.89 years

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For example, if an individual that was released during the summer of 2016 was rebooked within the first month
after that release, served another two month sentence, was released, then rebooked again three months later this
individual would be counted as having recidivated within one month.

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 Table 3 summarizes the results of this recidivism analysis. The majority of returning

citizens were rebooked within the 7 – 12 month (44.79%) and 1 – 6 month (26.04%) periods

following their release.

Table 3: Recidivism Analysis

Time since Max Out Date n rate of recidivism

< 1 month 7 7.29%

1 - 6 month 25 26.04%

7 - 12 month 43 44.79%

13 – 24 months 21 21.88%

Discussion

In this analysis, of the 338 clients served by USH between April 2016 and April 2018, 96

clients recidivated. Of those who recidivated, 21 (21.88%) had been rebooked 12 months or

more post-release. Those that recidivated were most likely to recidivate within 6 to 12 months

after release (44.79%). A prior evaluation of USH max out clients from 2015 – 2016 reported a

similar one-year recidivism rate of 23.42% (Meiser, 2016).

Meiser’s 2016 evaluation of USH max out clients concluded that USH’s clients may be

recidivating at a lower rate than the broader statewide max out population as reported by

Hawaiʻi’s Interagency Council on Intermediate Sanctions (ICIS). The most recent report from

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ICIS analyzed fiscal year 2013 data that included a subset of maximum term released individuals

(Wong, 2017), however, we did not compare our data to the ICIS report due to sample

differences that restrict reliable comparison between the two populations. Most importantly, ICIS

utilizes a more comprehensive definition of recidivism for their analyses - the recidivated max-

out sample in their data also includes those held in contempt of court - while this study only

includes re-arrest and parole violation. This was because access to data for the current study was

limited to PSD data and we were not able to include judiciary data. Although ICIS provides a

breakdown of those max-outs in their sample who recidivated via re-arrest or parole violation

only, that figure is a three-year recidivism rate and our study period is only up to two years post-

release. In fact, ICIS primarily examines three-year recidivism rates for most of their analyses,

and while their report does provide one- and two-year max-out recidivism rates they do so only

for the full max-out sample (that includes those held in contempt of court). Finally, our sample is

comprised of a subset of male max-outs on the island of Oahu, while the ICIS population

includes both genders and data from facilities across the state. Again, although ICIS does provide

recidivism rates broken down by county (City and County of Honolulu provides Oahu data) and

by gender, these are three-year rates. Further, their Oahu subsample includes both genders and

the males in the gender analysis include all types of recidivators. For these reasons, out of all of

the various analyses of max-out recidivism ICIS provides, none of their reported rates provide an

appropriate comparison for our sample. To better understand the impact of USH services, future

research should compare max-outs whom receive USH services to those max-outs in the state

who do not using a uniform definition of recidivism.

The method of data collection for the demographic information of this sample make

meaningful interpretation or comparison of findings regarding ethnicity and race difficult. The

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PSD uses predefined U.S. Census Bureau categories for race data collected in OffenderTrak, and

individuals can only self-report one of those predetermined categories (S. Ucol-Camacho,

personal communication, December 13, 2017). Although the U.S. Census has updated their race

categories over the years, the PSD has not correspondingly updated their data collection

methods. Unlike race data, ethnicity data originates from individual’s self-reported response and

is entered into OffenderTrak by PSD staff. Neither race nor ethnicity data in OffenderTrak are

verified. Furthermore, among this sample there were individuals reporting their race as

“Asian/Pacific Islander” and then reporting “White” and “Portuguese” as their ethnicity. This is

an example of how racial and ethnic identity can be experienced quite differently by the

individual from how it is conventionally conceptualized.

The findings of this study suggest a need to complete a three-year follow-up analysis for

this sample, and to continue to collect data for ongoing, cumulative recidivism analyses of USH

clients. It would also be important to compare outcomes for USH clients to those individuals that

max out that do not receive USH’s reentry services, and to conduct an economic analysis of the

program. As more data is collected, future studies could also include recidivism analyses for

USH clients by disposition status, by recidivism type, by initial offense type, by age, by type of

max out, and by length of incarceration.

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 References

Meiser, E. (2016). Recidivism evaluation of United Self-Help. Honolulu County Offender

Reentry Program and Research and Evaluation in Public Safety.

Wong, T. (2016). State of Hawaii, FY 2013 cohort: 2016 recidivism update. Interagency Council
on Intermediate Sanctions.

Ucol-Camacho, S. (2017, December, 13). Personal Communication for OffenderTrak training.

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Appendix 1.

n count Recidivism rate Eligible follow up

Max out month - year n count
rearrested by month analysis cohort
Apr-16 9 4 44% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
May-16 22 10 45% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Jun-16 18 8 44% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Jul-16 21 8 38% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Aug-16 26 6 23% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Sep-16 19 5 26% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Oct-16 11 3 27% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Nov-16 9 3 33% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Dec-16 22 7 32% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Jan-17 24 7 29% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Feb-17 12 3 25% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Mar-17 16 8 50% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Apr-17 11 3 27% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
May-17 13 4 31% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12, 12+ months
Jun-17 6 1 17% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12 months
Jul-17 0 0 0% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12 months
Aug-17 13 2 15% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12 months
Sep-17 15 3 20% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12 months
Oct-17 13 3 23% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12 months
Nov-17 9 2 22% <1, 2 - 6, 7 -12 months
Dec-17 10 0 0% <1, 2 – 6 months
Jan-18 13 1 08% <1, 2 – 6 months
Feb-18 8 3 38% <1, 2 – 6 months
Mar-18 16 2 13% <1, 2 – 6 months
Apr-18 2 0 0% < 1, 2 – 6 months

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