A sweeping new study out of the University of Nebraska Omaha is upending a long-standing assumption that most people convicted of crimes end up back behind bars. Researchers who tracked more than 16 million people across five states over four decades found that 63% of people charged with a crime were never charged again, a finding that directly challenges the belief that two-thirds of offenders reoffend.
The study, titled “Criminal history's expiration date: Evidence of prediction decay,” was published in Criminology, the flagship journal of the American Society of Criminology. As reported by KETV, lead author Zachary Hamilton said the research found the reverse of the long-held belief that two-thirds of people who commit crimes return to jail or prison. Hamilton and his team, which included researchers Alex Kigerl, Jennifer J. Tostlebe, and John Ursino, drew on criminal charge records spanning 1980 to 2020 across Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Texas, and Washington, covering more than 746 million person-year observations, according to the University of Nebraska Omaha.
Risk Fades Fast, Then Keeps Fading
The numbers show just how quickly that risk drops off. The probability of receiving a new charge after a prior offense falls from 28% in the first year to roughly 2% by year 30, according to the university, reflecting a 51% relative decline in risk during just the first seven years. The study also found that after nine to 10 years, a person's likelihood of committing a crime is no greater than the average person's, per the same KETV report.
That decay rate held steady regardless of state, sex, race, ethnicity, or how serious the original offense was, the university's research notes. The study included both misdemeanors and felonies, and researchers found little difference between nonviolent and violent offenses in predicting someone's future likelihood of committing another crime. The one exception researchers identified: adults aged 35 and older see a modestly faster decline in reoffending risk than younger adults.
Why Old Numbers Painted a Different Picture
Hamilton and his co-authors argue that earlier models claiming most released prisoners reoffend rest on flawed data. Those models cannot distinguish one person racking up several charges from several different people each picking up a single charge, the researchers said, and that blind spot lets a small share of repeat offenders inflate overall reoffending numbers.
That distinction helps explain the gap between UNO's findings and federal incarceration data. A Bureau of Justice Statistics study tracking state prisoners released in 2012 across 34 states found a 71% rearrest rate within five years, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. An earlier federal study following prisoners released in 2005 across 30 states found an 83% rearrest rate over nine years — but even there, annual rearrest rates dropped from 44% in Year 1 to 24% by Year 9, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Those studies focus only on people who were incarcerated, a population already skewed toward extensive criminal histories, unlike UNO's population-wide charge data.
A Lincoln Man's Own Path Out
For Tommy Moore, the findings line up with what he has witnessed firsthand. Moore, a Lincoln man who served nine years in prison for DUI manslaughter in Florida, told KETV he was not surprised by the study's findings while teaching in prisons for Rise and for Southeast Community College. He said almost every person he has seen leave prison is seriously trying to change, and that people leaving prison want to give back to society but often run into barriers along the way.
Moore said his purpose is to show people their past need not define their future and to give hope to the hopeless. Since his release from prison in 2009, he has earned a doctorate from Northcentral University, a private online college in California, and co-founded Priority One Coaching, Counseling and Consulting in Florida in 2017. This year, Moore was recognized as the Nebraska Department of Correction's Teacher of the Year. Despite his degree and his work inside prison classrooms, Moore says he still has been unable to find work in corporate America because of his record.
Nebraska's Overcrowded Prisons Add Pressure
The findings arrive as Nebraska's prison system remains badly strained. The Nebraska Center for Justice Research has reported that state prisons operate significantly above capacity, with facilities like the Nebraska State Penitentiary reaching up to 157% of design capacity, according to the University of Nebraska Omaha's own research center. Separately, Nebraska's three-year return-to-prison recidivism rate stands at approximately 30.2%, according to state corrections data compiled by World Population Review.
Hamilton said the implications extend well beyond academic debate. He argued that offenses should fade from consideration when assessing how long probation or parole should last, or how long employment barriers should remain in place, according to KETV's reporting. The study's authors have also noted that current risk-assessment tools used daily in U.S. courts treat prior charges as permanent risk factors, and their findings support building automated lookback limits into background checks and risk-scoring systems, according to a flyer published by the Advancing Research in Corrections lab.
