Both the Australian and international evaluation literature have included analysis of measures other than completion rates in evaluating wider correctional program success, including recidivism, offender and co-resident perceptions about the program, other stakeholder satisfaction levels (eg, courts and Boards, corrective services staff), diversion from imprisonment, and cost-benefit analysis.
The relevance of such measures as appropriate outcome indicators is obviously dependent on the particular aims and objectives of a particular program. However, order completion and recidivism are the most commonly used outcome measures for assessing the effectiveness of home detention. Only a small number of studies include other measures, such as detainee, family, program staff, or judicial officer/Board satisfaction with the program or community attitudes to this sanction.
Options for assessing outcome effectiveness 1 for home detention are similar to those of any other corrective services program, that is, three broad categories of:
Given the scope of this project and the findings of the literature review, order completion has been considered a reasonable outcome measure to assess performance variation for this study and as a base for any future benchmarking work, particularly given NCAG work in developing a more refined completion indicator (such as distinguishing between different types of unsuccessful completion).
Other outcome indicators suggested by program managers included social measures such as the effectiveness of community reintegration and positive family relationships. Progress achieved against individual case plan goals was considered by some to be a more appropriate indicator than simply completing/not completing the order. The importance of considering breach rates in relation to program requirements was also stressed, in that successful outcome based on only low breach rates may reflect very limited order obligations (eg, no requirement to attend approved programs or to seek/maintain employment) or be the result of limited monitoring (eg, there is a higher risk of detecting breaches of alcohol/drug conditions when there is an intensive testing regime in place).
While these suggested measures would certainly provide useful additional information, each would need significant work to establish appropriate definitions and agreed counting rules as well as substantial resource implications to implement for at least some jurisdictions. On the grounds of practicality, program completion rates would appear to be the most appropriate measure for any additional benchmarking work, at least in the immediate future, particularly when incorporating developmental work being undertaken by NCAG on this indicator.
In relation to identifying and assessing underlying factors that may contribute to performance variation on outcome measures, the current study has been based on an analysis of fairly limited statistical information. For example, it has not been possible to compare risk levels of detainee populations, which has been identified as a strong predictor for successful program outcome in the international research and practice literature, given both the scope of the current study and differences between jurisdictions in the methods used to assess risk.
One approach to assessing the impact of risk in the absence of jurisdictionally comparable risk scores would be to compare the risk profiles of detainees against other corrective services populations within each jurisdiction and then draw cross jurisdictional comparisons on the extent of similarity or difference. For example, if a jurisdiction shows higher average risk scores (on that jurisdiction’s particular risk measure) for detainees entering the home detention program than for offenders sentenced to community based orders and similar average risk scores to prisoners in full-time imprisonment, then arguably the detainee population is a higher risk group than in another jurisdiction where the average risk score of detainees (even if measured using a totally different assessment tool) is similar to offenders serving a low-intensity supervision order and significantly lower than those in full-time detention. Again, such comparisons have been outside of the scope of the current study and would require jurisdictions to collecting such information in the longer term for future analysis.
1 As opposed to efficiency measures (such as unit cost); quality of service measures (such as stakeholder satisfaction); or access/participation measures (such as percentage of successful applications by prisoners or proportion of assessment report recommendations adopted by the court).