By David Riley, Chief Adviser Psychological Services
An evaluation of an American reintegration programme which helps prisoners to successfully re-enter the community, has been found to reduce re-offending in high risk young men by around 30 percent.
There have been comparatively few evaluations of the effectiveness of reintegration programmes, so this recent article by Braga et al (2009)1 is a welcome contribution.
The authors evaluate the outcome of focusing resources on higher risk young violent male prisoners released from the county jail into the wider Boston area. Programme participants were selected on a number of objective measures of heightened risk, including basic demographic and criminal history, as well as other factors associated with release failure such as substance abuse, antisocial peers, and returning to communities with high rates of violent crime.
Beginning in 2001, the highest-risk inmates from the county jail were assessed to determine their specific treatment and reintegrative needs, and were then assigned to the programme which involved the combined efforts of judicial agencies and non-governmental providers.
Each participant was given an accountability plan outlining a recommended and co-ordinated regime of treatment and supervision, beginning in prison and continuing after release. The services addressed immediate issues such as health insurance, shelter, transportation, clothing and the like, as well as longer-term issues such as substance abuse, mental health treatment, education, career counselling, and permanent accommodation.
In addition to the mix of services provided by governmental and non-governmental agencies, faith-based organisations provided mentors to participants, both in prison and post-release. Notably, their salaries were funded by the programme, and on average mentors stayed involved with the participants for 12-18 months.
The comparison group used in the evaluation was made up of similar high risk young males who were released into the community from the same jail in the year before the programme’s implementation.
Both the programme participants and the control group were followed up for three years, and overall, although recidivism rates remained high, those who took part in the programme reoffended approximately 30 percent less than their peers in the comparison group.
This was particularly pleasing as not only were they less likely to offend generally, they were also less likely to offend violently. The programme participants also took longer, on average, to reoffend than the control group.
This evaluation was well conducted, used appropriate statistical analyses, and attempted to control for the impact of extraneous variables, and consequently a high level of confidence can be placed in these results.
Overall, this study reinforces the notion that those at highest risk of violent recidivism are appropriate candidates for treatment, and that an intensive approach to managing release and reintegration, incorporating both governmental and non-governmental agencies has the potential to achieve significant and lasting reductions in general and violent reoffending.
1 Braga A., Piehl A., and Hureau D. (2009), Controlling Violent Offenders Released to the Community: An Evaluation of the Boston Re-entry Initiative, Journal of Research & Crime in Delinquency, 46, pp 411-436.
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