Toward a More Complete Model of Offender Reintegration: Linking the Individual-, Community-, and System-Level Components of Recidivism

Over the last several decades significant progress has been made in identifying the evidence-based components of successful offender reentry. These advancements have often been limited to specific disciplines and frequently are developed by academics or practice-based researchers independent of one another. Further, although a large body of knowledge has been compiled detailing the significant predictors of recidivism, the specific mechanisms by which these correlates either reduce or increase recidivism remain largely unknown. Accordingly, the present work seeks to build a more complete framework of offender reintegration by integrating existing knowledge on what works in reducing recidivism across multiple levels of analysis. We argue that social support provides an organizing concept for understanding the existing relationships in recidivism research. The implications for continued theoretical development and future testing of the model are discussed.