In fact figures from such censuses are highly variable. The argument also ignores important risk factors such as sex, age, and exposure to prison of an individual, as well as variations between states, between locations within states, and between times of year. Using calculations based on recent research into the recidivism of Western Australian prisoners, we show that the latter probability, for an Aborigine in Western Australia, is likely to be of the order of three or more times that of a non-Aborigine. Such a disproportion may not be accounted for entirely by the overrepresentation of Aborigines in custody. A Failure Rate Analysis', Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, vol.
Recidivism is defined as reincarceration and excludes convictions involving other penal sanctions.
Estimates of the ultimate probability of recidivism for this population and various subgroups describe recidivism for race, sex, age, offence, and other variables, confirming a classic failure profile with strong distinctions by these factors, particularly race. Higher recidivism was observed for male, and young prisoner. Aboriginal prisoners incarcerated longer and for more serious offences. Participation in work release and financial assistance on release was also associated with lower recidivism. The time to fail was consistently much shorter for Aboriginals across all factors than for non-Aboriginal prisoners.