To see how peer support played a role in their success or failures, participants were asked several question about their friends input on places to live, available jobs, transportation, drugs and alcohol, and financial means (Taylor & Becker, 2015). While the findings found that there wasn 't a significant difference in peer support for whether a participant committed a new crime, there were other unique results, such as family support also did not play a significant role either way, and that amongst the participants, there was a higher rate of victimization, and that as a result, the recidivism rates were higher, and that substance abuse was another factor for the higher rate of recidivism (Taylor & Becker, 2015). The study showed limitations that ultimately could have effected the outcome, such as the population of those recently released, are sometimes difficult to get in touch with, so there were some gas int he true reporting, and the study was more about instrumental support such as material help, rather than emotional support from peers (Taylor & Becker, 2015). The suggestion was made that if material peer support does not make much of a difference in recidivism, perhaps more social services, substance abuse treatments, and counseling or other psychological services should be the focus for prisoners being released …show more content…
A person who is imprisoned receives three meals and a place to sleep everyday. The next study looked at the characteristics of homelessness, as it pertains to recidivism (Pharhar & Wormith, 2013). Beginning with approximately 200-250 prisoners, and narrowing the sample down to 41 (36 men and 5 women, mean age = 34.78), from five Federal Canadian prisons, to become the participants of the study (Pharhar & Wormith, 2013). Prisoners were interviewed within three months of release, to discuss their living situation prior to incarceration, as well as their plans upon release; 70.7 were not considered to be homelss prior to incarceration, with the majority of 61.1% being renters of a home or apartment (Pharhar & Wormith, 2013). Attempts to interview 2 months after release proved difficult, and after several failures of the participants including non-contact after prison, or re-incarceration, the sample was again narrowed, down to 11, which deemed the stuudy to be too small to complete on a quatitative basis (Pharhar & Wormith, 2013). Instead, data was collected from the remaining participants via interviews, and futher data was collected on the remaining participants who went back to prison, from Police information records and parole officers, that included assessments of the outside factors and risks for those who went back to prison