Recidivism (; from
recidive and
ism, from
Latin recidivus "recurring", from
re- "back" and
cedo "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they had either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or had been trained to extinguish that behavior. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested for a similar offense.