Enhancing Prisoner Reentry Through Access to Prison-Based and Post-Incarceration Aftercare Treatment: Experiences From the Illinois Sheridan Correctional Center Therapeutic Community

• NCJ Number: 228881
• Journal: Journal of Experimental Criminology Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2009 Pages: 299-321
• Author(s): David E. Olson; Jennifer Rozhon; Mark Powers
• Date Published: September 2009
• Length: 23 pages
• Grant Number(s): 04-DJ-BX-0043
• Sponsoring Agency: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: Israel

Annotation

This study examined the experiences of and lessons learned from Illinois' efforts to reduce the recidivism of drug-abusing offenders through a comprehensive prison-based and community-based substance abuse treatment and aftercare program.

Abstract

One of the study's most important findings is that, despite substantial resources and an organizational and political commitment to the implementation of substantive reform within Illinois' prison system, the time needed to create the necessary components of an efficient and seamless continuum of care from prison to community can require 2 to 3 years. Regarding the program's outcome, those released from Sheridan Correctional Center, a treatment community for drug-abusing offenders, had a 20-percent lower likelihood of being returned to prison than the comparison group. Moreover, when Sheridan graduates were further distinguished between those who had completed aftercare and those who had not, those who had completed aftercare had a higher likelihood of being returned to prison than the comparison group. This finding was likely due to the fact that failure to comply with aftercare conditions among the Sheridan releasees was a technical violation of parole. This might have increased the likelihood that Sheridan parolees would be returned to prison compared with the control group. Although these findings are preliminary and limited by the inability to account statistically for differences in treatment motivation among the comparison groups, they are consistent with the growing body of research that shows improvement in recidivism outcome when prison-based treatment-community participation is followed by community-based aftercare. This analysis is part of a larger, long-term process and impact evaluation of the Sheridan Correctional Center. A total of 2,841 program participants were included in the analyses. They completed the prison phase of the program between fiscal year 2005 and 2008. 2 tables and 50 references