Prisoner Reentry in Georgia

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

Executive Summary

This report describes the process of prisoner reentry in Georgia by examining the trends in incarceration and prisoner releases in the state, the characteristics of the state's returning prisoners, the geographic distribution of returning prisoners, and the social and economic climates of the communities that are home to the highest concentrations of returning prisoners. This report does not attempt to evaluate a specific reentry program or empirically assess Georgia's reentry policies and practices. Rather, the report consolidates existing data on incarceration and release trends and presents a new analysis of data on Georgia prisoners released in 2002. The data used for this report were derived from several sources, including the Georgia Department of Corrections, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Highlights from the report are presented below.

Incarceration and Release Trends. Georgia's incarceration and release trends are similar to those observed at the national level. Between 1982 and 2002, the Georgia prison population more than tripled, increasing from 13,884 to 46,534 people. The per capita rate of imprisonment in Georgia rose from 219 to 538 per 100,000 residents in the state between 1980 and 2000, an increase of over 150 percent. Georgia's release patterns reflect these admission and population trends: 16,124 prisoners were released from Georgia prisons in 2002, more than one and a half times the number released in 1982 (N = 9,748).

Characteristics of Prisoners Released in 2002. The majority of released prisoners were male (89 percent) and black (66 percent). The average age at release was 34 years. The largest percentage of prisoners (36 percent) had been serving time for property offenses. Drug offenses were the second most common offense (29 percent). The average time served was 1.8 years. While the majority of prisoners represented new court commitments, a notable percentage (41 percent) were incarcerated for parole and probation violations. The majority report no medical illness or history of mental illness; however, 70 percent have histories of drug use. Educational attainment is also quite low.

Release and Supervision Policies and Practices. In 2002, the majority (79 percent) of all exiting prisoners were released to a period of supervision. The percentage of supervised and unsupervised released prisoners has remained relatively stable over time, fluctuating about 17 percent between 1982 and 2002.

Geographic Distribution of Released Prisoners. Eight counties—Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Clayton, Richmond, Chatham, Muscogee, and Dougherty—received 43 percent of prisoners who returned to the state of Georgia. Twelve percent of released prisoners returned to Fulton County alone; no other county is home to more than 7 percent of releases. County-specific analyses in Fulton and Dougherty revealed that most released prisoners returned to the central cities of these counties, where unemployment is higher than in the rest of the county and city, and where large shares of the population live in poverty and in single parent, female-headed households. Within the central city of Atlanta, releases are most heavily concentrated in 5 of the city's 104 zip code areas, and within the city of Albany, releases are most heavily concentrated in 3 of the city's 13 zip code areas.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Usage, posting and reprint of materials on the UI web site:

Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site in PDF format. This information may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required.

Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute—contact paffairs@urban.org.

If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us or call the Publications Office at (202) 261-5687.