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Comparing the effects of community service and imprisonment on reconviction: results from a quasi-experimental Danish study

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Abstract

Objective

This study compares reconviction rates for Danish offenders sentenced to community service and imprisonment. A large general sample of offenders (n = 1602) is examined.

Methods

The study relies on a quasi-experimental design and uses propensity score matching as well as logistic regression models to analyze the data. Models are differentiated in terms of length of observation period and control variable combinations. The study stands out as compared to previous studies due to the unprecedented assortment of individual background data available. These data, obtained from community service eligibility assessments and registry databases, provide powerful controls over potential selection mechanisms in the multivariate analyses. Furthermore, contrary to previous studies, the current study limits itself to subjects officially assessed and deemed eligible for community service sentences.

Results

Imprisonment is associated with a higher rate of recidivism and the result is statistically significant at conventional statistical levels.

Conclusions

Community service (CS) compared to imprisonment appears to cause a lower reconviction rate in general. Additional research is needed to shed light on differences in time to failure, the effect of different types of CS and imprisonment, the relationship between time spent in CS and effect as well as the seriousness of offending following sentences of CS as compared to imprisonment.

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Notes

  1. Clausen (2007) actually includes information on drug abuse and mental health issues. However, this information is based on official registry data and thus likely to suffer from underreporting.

  2. Although it needs to be said that 32 % in detention group and 41 % of the restitution/CS group entered the experiment as a result of a felony conviction (Schneider 1986: 545).

  3. An index date after 2009 means a 3-year observation period is not possible because crime information is solely available until 2012.

  4. The age of criminal responsibility in Denmark is at age 15.

  5. The two averages are significantly different according to a Z-test and based on information about 152 CS offenders and 102 offenders on parole as reported by local divisions of the Danish Prison and Probation Service from February 1 to April 1 2012 (Bien 2012:3). The averages in the full observation period are unknown.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the following list of individuals for contributing to the study in some way or another: Lin Adrian, Lars H. Andersen, Signe H. Andersen, Flemming Balvig, Susanne Clausen, Peter Fallesen, Carsten Henrichsen, Lars Holmberg, Stine L. Jensen, Tanja T. Jørgensen, Kristian B. Karlson, Britta Kyvsgaard, Anne-Julie B. Pedersen, Maria L. Pedersen, Jens H. Poulsen, three anonymous reviewers (especially reviewer three), and expressly Dave Sorensen. Furthermore, the author is grateful for the data analyzed in the study provided by Danish Prison and Probation Service.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Division, Danish Ministry of Justice, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Christian Klement

  2. Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Christian Klement

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  1. Christian Klement
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Correspondence to Christian Klement.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 6 Summary of estimates in the logistic regression on community service versus imprisonment. The variables used in this regression are exactly the same as used in the propensity score matching, which is used in the current study
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Table 7 Summary of balance within the unmatched data
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Table 8 Summary of balance within the matched data
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Table 9 Summary of percent balance improvement from the unmatched to the matched data
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Table 10 Summary of estimates in the logistic regression model with basic controls only in 1-year observation period
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Table 11 Summary of estimates in the logistic regression model with basic controls only in 3-year observation period
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Table 12 Summary of estimates in the logistic regression model with basic controls, index sentence length, and index age in 1-year observation period
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Table 13 Summary of estimates in the logistic regression model with basic controls, index sentence length, and index age in 3-year observation period
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Table 14 Goodness-of-fit measures for all 12 logistic regression models
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Table 15 Likelihood ratio tests comparing the model with basic controls and the other models within each observation period
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Klement, C. Comparing the effects of community service and imprisonment on reconviction: results from a quasi-experimental Danish study. J Exp Criminol 11, 237–261 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-015-9231-1

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