An Analysis of Recidivism by Gender Based on Brazilian Prison Microdata

In many countries, recidivism of offenders is analyzed using prison microdata to formulate public policies, but in Brazil this is still rare; and even in the international literature thereare few studies by gender. This paper helps fill both of these gaps by tabulating thousands of prison records in Santa Catarina in an unprecedented way. We find, for example, that women enter prison at an older age than men, are more likely to participate in work and education programs and psychological treatments, and receive more family visits. Recidivism rates are lower and the length of freedom (after release from prison) is longer for women. However, as the number of prior convictions increases, everyone gets caught in a cycle of incarceration and release. The conclusion is that a better policy to reduce recidivism would be to reduce the number of young offenders, taking into account gender.