The reciprocal lagged effects of substance use and recidivism in a prisoner reentry context

Background Much work has investigated the association between substance use, crime, and recidivism, yet little scholarship has examined these associations longitudinally among samples of recently released prisoners. We examine the lagged reciprocal effects of hard substance use and crime, among other covariates, in the context of the prisoner reentry process. Methods We rely on data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) evaluation and employ cross-lagged panel models to examine short-term changes in substance use and crime over time among a large sample of high-risk, former prisoners ( N = 1697). Results Substance use marginally predicted increased odds of rearrest at one wave, and rearrest significantly ( p