Recidivism rates in McLean County appear to be holding steady since it was last measured nearly a decade ago, with approximately two-thirds of offenders avoiding a new conviction.
Illinois State University’s Stevenson Center compiles criminal justice data in McLean County. Data presented last week to the county’s multidisciplinary Criminal Justice Coordinating Council updates recidivism rates for the first time since 2017, which found reconviction rates dating back to 2002 also hovering around 30%.
A first glimpse at the new data set, which ISU sociologist Frank Beck is still being worked on, now considers 23 years of records, and showed 67% of criminal and misdemeanor convictions have not been convicted again. According to the Stevenson Center’s data, that’s 15,629 people navigating the criminal justice system with a single offense resulting in judgment.
“Those are the ‘one and done,’ to use a phrase I’ve heard people use,” Beck said in his presentation to the council, “where there’s one case and then no recidivism.”
Those with more than one case ending in a conviction [which by Beck’s definition included guilty dispositions and non-conviction outcomes like court supervision and first offender probation] comprise nearly two-thirds of all cases in McLean County over the same 23-year time period.
Beck said if you do the math, that’s an average of 3.4 cases for each person who reoffends.
“On average, there’s three cases,” he said. “There’s somebody in the data who has 16 dispositions.”
Hard to gauge against peers
Casey Costigan, the chief judge for the 11th judicial circuit, which includes McLean County, asked Beck how McLean County measures up against other parts of Illinois.
“That number, 33.1%... it seems that when you look at recidivism rates historically, that would be a low recidivism rate,” said Costigan. “Have you compared McLean’s recidivism rate with other counties around the state to determine where we stand?”
“I have not,” Beck said. “Do you know?”
“I don’t,” Costigan said.
Apples-to-apples are nearly impossible, since researchers have not settled on a definition for how to measure recidivism. One statewide data set produced by Loyola University says 75% of those released from prison in Illinois were not rearrested for a violent crime within 3 years. YWCA McLean County measures recidivism as returning to prison. The Illinois Department of Corrections tracked a downward trending rate, with 38.3% of people who left prison in fiscal year 2019 returning within three years. That number is slightly lower when Cook and the Chicago area collar counties are excluded.
McLean County’s data does not give a specific time range and is based on dispositions, not rearrests or incarceration status.
Beck declined to fashion a guess about where McLean County stands, but told Costigan “we can figure that out.”
“There’s more work to be done,” he said, “to see what’s happening within five years, what’s happening when someone’s on probation, so forth, or what’s happening in the specialty courts. All of that stuff is still to do.”
