Some criminals never learn. Well, actually most don’t.

But when it comes to violence, and hence gun violence, this is an important part of the puzzle.

Take-aways

• 2% of prison admissions are for violent crimes.
• 64% of admitted prisoners had their first arrest in the teen years.
• 30% of them account for 51% of prior arrests.

Large, Oldish Data, Frustrating Study

When a reputable (and positively OCD) organization like the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reviews over 90,000 newly incarcerated convicts, and repeats the stunt 15 years later, you have an admirably robust study.

Which had one aching gap.

In 2009 and again in 2014, BJS tallied folks heading to the Big House ¹, and nabbed data about their crimes, demographics, and prior arrest histories. A stunning achievement given that this accounted for 73% of all prison admissions.

The aggravating thing is that, though we know in aggregate something about these inmates’ prior crimes, we do not have a discreet summary of how many of them who were imprisoned for a violent offense had previous violent offenses, much less the ratio of new and old gun violence offenses.

All that griping aside, we can get an idea of how problematic jailbirds are and make rational guesses about the violence angle.

They Start Young

The report says 28.2% of the new or renewed cons went in for violent crimes.

But that is only the “now,” whereas the “then” is more important.

click to enlarge sharable charts

Repeat offenders tend to start their criminal ways young, including committing acts of violence. Nearly 64% of the Prison Class of 2014 had their first arrest in their teenage years.

To shed a bit more light on this issue, the National Gang Center notes that blacks are much more likely to be street gang members. In 2014, 14.4% of gang age males were black, but 33.5% of prison inductees were as well. The overrepresentation of blacks in gangs and prison is not coincidental.

The age of the 2014 roster of incarcerated criminals also skews heavily younger, with the second biggest group being under the age of 24. Gang recruitment begins at age 14, according to the National Gang Center demographic study, so it is unsurprising they are high on the list.

And their numbers herein are underreported. Some states do not classify or process juvenile violent offenders as adults, and depending on the offence, it might not involve prison time. Odds are the 25-and-younger group is functionally the largest in this collection.

They Repeat Often

The early 1990s backlash against rising crime was due in no small part to a “revolving door justice system.” The phrases “repeat offender” and “habitual criminal” were frequent utterances (we previously covered habitual offender laws).

But the remaining degree of habitual crime is still huge.

Astoundingly, 77% of people heading for the hoosgow have five or more prior arrests. Given that 25% of them are going down the river for a violent offense, odds are at least one of those priors is for violence as well.

Despite 24 states with more than half of the nation’s population passing habitual offender laws between 1993 and 1996, criminals still repeat crimes and repeatedly go to prison. The punishment is not enough of a deterrent and rehabilitation is incomplete.

The staggering view shows that 30% of the people going into prison had 51% of all prior arrests.

This correlation is important because it mirrors what has long been known about street gang members. Within gangs, there are super predators – “people” who kill routinely. In scattered local law enforcement statements, we have seen that a gang member being held on a murder charge is the lead suspect in 2–3 other homicides, and those are only the ones where cops can make a connection. It is unsurprising that the prison induction caseload is weighted heavily toward repeat offenders, and as a byproduct repeat violent offenders, which in turn means repeat gun violence offenders.

In fact, of the sundry crime categories, violence is ahead of all the others, covering 28.2% of all the new offenses.

The Incomplete Data

As meaty as this BJS report is, it does not directly tally  the number of fresh violent crime inmates who had prior violent crime arrests, much less prior gun crime arrests. We can infer correlations thanks to other data from other sources, but the connection is not ironclad.

The BJS is aware of this shortcoming. They note that one of their reports from 2021 indicated 32.4% of people released from prison who were convicted of a violent crime were nearly as likely to be rearrested for a violent crime, whereas only 28.9 were rearrested for property crimes. The report “suggests” that there exists a significant recidivism rate among violent offenders.

It is a shame that their analysis stops here. BJS has the best researchers. Mapping prior and new violent crimes, and additionally prior and new gun crimes, would provide many revelations and reset national priorities.