Determinants of Recidivism in India: An Empirical Investigation

This study examines the determinants of recidivism, which refers to the repeated commission of criminal activities. It highlights the issue of repeated crime in an emerging economy like India and social factors associated with such behaviour of habitual offenders. Panel data techniques are used for empirical analysis using data from prison statistics of India for the period of 2001-2019 on 20 major states in India. Findings reveal that age, education, religion, social caste groups are factors behind recidivism in India and level of education is the most significant determinant. Illiteracy is directly related to recidivism while higher education, especially technical education is inversely related to it. Technical education reduces repeated crimes in India irrespective of age and religion. This paper thus raises a highly relevant social research issue and identifies that job-oriented or technical education helps to reduce recidivism rate or repeated crimes.