disease. On the other hand, the number of new cases diagnosed with AIDS within a given year indicates the incidence of this disease in the population. In the case of recidivism, prevalence refers to the number of cases that recidivate (at least once); the incidence of recidivism refers to the number of such incidents. A population has a low prevalence of recidivism if only one person recidivates; if the person recidivates 100 times, this population may have a high incidence of recidivism. In the context of longitudinal research, recidivism can also be studied from a dynamic perspective: how long does it take before a subject recidivates? The specific methods involved in the analysis of prevalence, incidence, and the timing of recidivism will be addressed later.
The analysis of criminal recidivism will take into account the type and severity of the offense. The categories of offense type include violent, drug, and property crime. The degrees of severity vary between felony, misdemeanor, and infraction. Due to data constraints, the research is limited to those crimes that come to the attention of the New York City criminal justice system. Failing to capture offenses that are not recorded or take place outside the jurisdiction of NYC, these statistics are bound to underestimate the true level of recidivism. However, it is unlikely that this source of error varies between the ATI participant sample and its comparison groups. Moreover, given that these programs are funded by the City of New York, it is clear that the focus of the study should be on their impact on criminal activity in New York City. The recidivism data will be collected at four levels of case processing: arrest, Criminal Court arraignment,
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