NCJ Number
221279
Date Published
December 2002
Length
75 pages
Annotation
The study provided a final evaluation of the Substance Abuse Violators Effort (SAVE) program.
Abstract
Findings revealed that the Save program, an alternative disposition program for technical parole violators who fail drug screening, appeared to be an appropriate alternative program to divert nonviolent substance abusing re-paroled offenders from prison to community-based settings. There appears to be positive economic benefits associated with the program, and an important positive reduction on prison overcrowding. Concurrently, there also appears to be favorable impact on offender behavior leading to increased opportunities for rehabilitation. The SAVE program began as a collaborative project among the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (PBPP), and Eagleville Hospital. The program consisted of four 90-day phases of substance abuse treatment which included: residential drug and alcohol facility treatment, intensive outpatient counseling coupled with intensive parole supervision; group counseling with intensive parole supervision, ending with group counseling; and standard parole services. The vast majority of SAVE participants found the program valuable and helpful; however, the majority of the offenders also believed that the program was not designed to meet the broader context of their needs for successful reintegration, such as few employment, family, and housing services being offered in relation to the level of problems experienced by the offender. Reinvesting some of the projected savings into the SAVE project and shifting resources to include a case manager as a component of the treatment project would lead to the development of a more comprehensive rehabilitation system that could potentially yield higher rates of program effectiveness and lower rates of recidivism. A comparative analysis was conducted with 65 offenders consecutively enrolled in the SAVE program and 65 offenders who had a similar technical parole violation but were returned to prison. Tables, references, appendices