Bar chart showing percent of people released from state prisons in 2012 who were re-arrested for a similar offense within five years, by type of offense. Homicide and rape/sexual assault have the lowest re-arrest rates of all.

Data Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics report Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 34 States in 2012: A 5-Year Follow-Up Period (2012-2017), Table 11. (Graph: Wendy Sawyer, 2026)

This graph originally appeared in When bad policies spread: The expansion of the "sex offense registry" model to other convictions.

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