Reciprocal Relationship between Returning Parolees and Neighborhood Crime Rates in Texas: A Longitudinal Study of Prisoner Reentry

A large body of literature documents that there is a marked increase in incarceration and people on parole in the United States until fairly recently. Empirical research has yet to sufficiently explore how people on parole returning to communities may affect neighborhood crime rates or neighborhood crime in turn influences parolees’ integration into communities. Drawing on recent scholarship on mass incarceration, prisoner reentry, and macrolevel predictors of crime, this study examines the reciprocal relationship between returning parolees and neighborhood crime rates using a large sample of parolees returning to neighborhoods in the five largest cities in Texas (Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio) over a nine-year time period (2003 - 2011). I employ cross-lagged regression models using structural equation modeling method to explore whether returning parolees in the former year affect the neighborhood crimerates the following year and vice versa. To fully capture these reciprocal effects, I propose a more accurate approach for measuring parolees by capturing their exposure in the community – days parolees are present in the neighborhood – and compare it to the most common approach of counting the number of parolees. Results indicate distinctions based on different measures: numbers of parolees do not have significant effect on either violent or property crime, but days of parolees in the neighborhood are significantly associated with reductions in neighborhood crime. The results suggest a strong selection effect of parolees. I highlight the dynamics of parolee reentry and neighborhoods in the era of mass incarceration