recidivism

6 synonyms for recidivism, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.

Noun — The tendency of a convicted offender to commit further crimes, especially after being released from prison; the rate at which this happens.

Synonyms

Less common

Still standard English, but they carry more weight.

relapse regression

Rare, literary or technical

Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.

reoffending relapse into crime repeat offending backsliding

Synonyms by Meaning

1. noun

The tendency of a convicted offender to commit further crimes, especially after being released from prison; the rate at which this happens.

“The programme cut recidivism among young offenders by a fifth.”

reoffending relapse into crime repeat offending

2. noun formal

A return to any former pattern of behaviour that someone had stopped, especially an addiction or unwanted habit.

“Relapse counselling treats recidivism as part of recovery rather than as failure.”

relapse backsliding regression

How to use recidivism

The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.

recidivism rate reduce recidivism high recidivism recidivism among juveniles

Formal; standard in criminology, policy and journalism.

Etymology

From Latin recidivus 'falling back', from recidere 'to fall back', formed from re- 'back' and cadere 'to fall'.

Full origin of recidivism →

Frequently asked questions

How is the recidivism rate measured?

Most commonly as the share of released prisoners who are rearrested, reconvicted or reimprisoned within a fixed window, usually one, two or three years. Because those three triggers give very different numbers, always check which one a statistic uses before comparing countries or programmes.

What is the difference between recidivism and relapse?

Recidivism refers to returning to criminal offending and is a criminal-justice measure. Relapse refers to returning to a behaviour or substance use and is a clinical one. They overlap when the offending is driven by addiction.

What causes high recidivism?

The factors researchers consistently identify are lack of housing and employment on release, untreated addiction and mental illness, weak family ties, and the disruption that imprisonment itself causes to all of these. Short sentences are associated with higher reoffending than community sentences for comparable offences.

People also searched

regression relapse backsliding

Nearby words

← Back to the full definition of recidivism