Spencer Ackerman points out that Secretary Bob Gates pegged the Gitmo recidivism rate at a significantly lower number than Dick Cheney did yesterday, "four to five percent" to Cheney's "eleven or twelve percent." That said, Gates did say that "there’s been an uptick in recent months," and I'm told the DoD will be releasing new numbers soon.
But even if we accepted the questionable "61" number of former Gitmo detainees who returned to terrorism, out of the 759 that have reportedly been detained there, that would only make a "jump" to 8 percent, which is significantly lower than the number Cheney gave. Remember, that's using the inflated numbers. It's also significantly lower than the 2/3 recidivism rate of U.S. prisons, which either means Gitmo has incredible rehabilitative powers or we're not detaining many actual terrorists.
There are some serious questions of news judgment in how these kinds of stories are covered. Gitmo's low recidivism rate actually isn't news; when the DoD released a widely cited report in June putting the number of former detainees returning to terrorism at 37, it noted that "The identified rate of reengagement over three years of tracking has remained relatively constant between 5 and 8 percent." They told reporters the recidivism rate was low. But "37 TERRORISTS FREE" makes for a better headline than "GITMO RECIDIVISM LOW."
-- A. Serwer
