David Kirk

The Impact of Residential Change and Housing Stability on Criminal Recidivism: A Randomized Controlled Trial
David Kirk
Professor, University of Oxford, Department of Sociology

More than 600,000 prisoners are released from U.S. prisons each year, and roughly one-half of these individuals are back in prison within just three years. A likely contributor to the vicious cycle of recidivism is the fact that many released prisoners return home to the same environment with the same criminal opportunities and criminal peers that proved so detrimental to their behavior prior to incarceration. In this lecture, Kirk will describe an experimental housing mobility program for recently released prisoners, called The Maryland Opportunities through Vouchers Experiment (MOVE), which was designed to test whether residential relocation far away from former neighborhoods can yield reductions in the likelihood of recidivism. Kirk will discuss the public safety benefits of expanding housing opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.

The Lectures in Planning Series (LiPS) is an initiative of the Urban Planning program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

All lectures are free and open to the public; refreshments are provided. For more information or to make program suggestions, email lipscolumbiaplanning@gmail.com.