It's hard to imagine buying a new car these days without at least comparing the fuel efficiency of different models. Those who care about how much they spend at the pump would do the research.

But until recently, that kind of thinking was not applied by corrections agencies to community corrections programming. In some states, alternatives to incarceration programs have been up and running for decades, but those funding these programs have not evaluated how effective they are –  despite the impact they have on recidivism rates. That is changing.

“In the world of justice we have to start thinking like a business, and in business you wouldn't do things that weren't producing results. We do have to pay more attention to the research so the results make sense and have positive impact, in particular as it relates to recidivism. This is the wave of the future,” said Deb Minardi, Deputy Administrator of Community Corrections Programs, Office of Probation Administration for the State of Nebraska.

Earlier this month, Nebraska probation officials launched a set of five pilot programs designed to divert high-risk offender with drug related charges from the prisons. These programs are unique for the state because they are the first community corrections programs ever implemented and they closely follow what is known as evidence-based practices – or research proven principles for success and lower recidivism.

“In probation without question we are moving toward everything evidence-based, whether it's is sex offenders, domestic violence offenders or juvenile justice. We are looking at what the research says and we will build and build and build,” said Ellen Fabian Brokofsky, Nebraska's Probation Administrator.

Nebraska isn't the only state looking to make changes based on the research.

Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is in the process of changing its Community Corrections Act programs to enhance outcomes and target resources toward those offenders who benefit the most from these diversion programs. Washington State has also commissioned the Washington State Institute for Pubic Policy to study and make recommendations to the state legislature about the implementation of evidence-based programs and the potential cost savings associated with them.

A Change in Thinking

According to Edward Latessa, Professor and Division Head, Division of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, corrections administrators and legislators across the country are starting to change their thinking about how to fund corrections, probation and parole programs.

While for many this paradigm shift began as a result of financial woes a few years ago, it seems to have stuck as officials realize the benefit of the research.

“Most states went through a pretty tough time and you started hearing about smart sentencing. It's a big ticket item. It started out that way, but it has gained a lot of momentum now. A lot of states are now saying ‘Why are we doing things that aren't getting the desired effect,” said Latessa, who has co-authored several studies about the effectiveness of Ohio's community corrections programming.

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati have studied the effectiveness of half-way houses, Community Corrections Act programs and juvenile community programs in Ohio.

Those studies determined that community corrections diversion programs were most effective when they admitted higher-risk cases, when they provided more services to those higher-risk cases, and when they separated offenders by high and low risk when referring them to outside services. In addition, the research showed that the programs needed more standardized program completion criteria, a quality assurance process, should adopt a sound treatment model, such as cognitive behavioral or behavioral based programming, and audit programs to meet certain criteria for effectiveness.

Latessa believes that years ago states focused on the number of offenders who could be diverted from prison or detention, rather than targeting the offenders most likely to succeed from community programs. Now with the research completed, the thinking has changed.

According to Latessa, some states, like Ohio, would typically allocate money towards programs, for example, that would divert 400 people from prison, then the jurisdictions running the programs would go out and find 400 people to fill those slots and get the money.

“The end result, though, is you get some low-risk people in there and you make them worse. The research says you need more treatment (for high-risk offenders,) but there's not enough money for it because it was allocated to the 400 offenders,” Latessa said.

“There wasn't a clear pattern about program design. Counties were told to serve more cases, serve more offenders. If there is that pressure, then you lose sight of what you're doing,” he added.

Latessa said that state legislators in Ohio have recently discussed tying treatment vouchers to high-risk offenders as a way of targeting programs to those who would benefit the most from them. This plan would decrease the number of offenders diverted, but would actually mean a higher success rate because high-risk offenders would receive more intense treatment with those same “diversion” dollars.

With the release of the University of Cincinnati's evaluation last spring, Ohio corrections officials have begun to implement some dramatic changes in how these programs are run – with the goal of that dollars will be better spent and programs will be offered to those  who will benefit from them the most.

Ohio Makes Changes

Linda Janes, Chief of the Bureau of Community Sanctions for the Ohio DRC, said the department has taken a three-pronged approach to revamping its community corrections diversion programs in light of the University of Cincinnati research.

One of the biggest changes that is on the horizon is the implementation of a new Ohio-based risk assessment tool, which addresses the problems found in the evaluation that different programs used different risk-assessment tools for offenders. The tool is being created in partnership with the University of Cincinnati.

“In Ohio, some of our programs are using no tool, others are using an extensive tool [the  LSI-R]. Some other smaller programs are using a makeshift tool they created on their own,” said Janes. “I think we are leaps and bounds ahead in terms of other states and it is something that no other state has attempted.”

Janes said the new assessment tool will benefit judges who will be better able to determine high-risk offenders from low-risk ones and make better sentencing decisions and it will standardize assessments of offenders in terms of scoring.

Janes explained that now, because different tools are being used, a score for one offender in one county may mean something completely different in another county that uses a different assessment tool.

“Everyone will be singing off the same sheet of music in terms of scores,” she said.

In addition, she expects the new tool will help to improve the scoring for sex offenders and domestic violence offenders.

“With sex offenders, domestic violence and DUI offenders often we get a false risk score and they appear to be a lower risk than they actually are. [With the new tool] we will have some drop down menus for those offenders [to drill down to their specific risk factors] and also it will be looking at the mental health offender,” Janes said.

Janes is especially excited about the computer interface that will come along with the new assessment tool because it will be accessible by all those authorized to use the system and will create a single record for offenders with their past scores, criminal history and other pertinent information to their participation in the community corrections programs.

Aside from the new assessment tool, Ohio officials have already instituted a new audit system with outcome-based standards to determine the performance of individual programs and to shift funding of programs to match those with the lowest recidivism rates.

“We are at a new level of sophistication and we want to hold those programs and offenders accountable,” said Janes. “We have changed the face of how we audit programs. We want to be able to tell taxpayers the money we are spending is being well-spent and the biggest bang for the buck is when you can reduce crime.”

With funding, Janes said, the state is changing its system from paying for programs per-offender-diversion to paying for them based on recidivism rates.

“We are looking at those programs that need to improve over the next 12 to 18 months. We are shifting the philosophy to looking at recidivism reduction and whether or not the programs have the characteristics of a successful program,” she said.

“In my view this is the silver lining of the budget cloud we have experience in the last four to six years. When dollars are tight it forces us to spend more wisely. [But] that should be used whether money is flowing or scarce. I think corrections is being run finally as a business,” she added.

As the changes materialize, the probation division will also strive to educate the public about what the research shows in terms of program effectiveness and how it relates to public safety.

“If you put a person in a program and they get the services they need, then it is a public safety issue. That offender will be less likely to commit a new crime,” Janes said.

Nebraska officials have also recently adopted this philosophy with the idea of improving results.

Nebraska Launches Pilot Programs

In just over a month, Nebraska felons with serious drug-related offenses will be diverted from prison time to a newly created community corrections program that is designed to address their substance abuse problems as well as their criminogenic thinking.

According to Nebraska Probation's Minardi, the programs will use assessment tools to determine those offenders who present the highest risk to recidivate.

“This is the first time we have developed a program that is founded on evidence-based principles and has combined treatment, cognitive behavioral programming and day reporting as components,” Minardi said.

The offenders who participate will do so while living in their homes and will report to programs specified in their individual treatment plans. Minardi said each offender will be prescribed a different “dosage” of the program based on their needs and their situation.

If, for example, an offender is holding down a job, then he may participate in the program after he leaves work each day. An offender who has no regular employment would likely participate in programs for a full-day.

The length of the programming will differ for each offender as well.

“One individual may be involved in employment skills and education, while another may be involved in anger management and parenting. One of the things we don't want is a cookie cutter program. We know we have to tailor to the needs of the offender and that will drive the length of time. And, the research tells us the longer, the better,” she said.
 
Each of the five pilot program sites is able to take 48 offenders who will be supervised by specially trained Specialized Substance Abuse Supervision officers.

These officers, which include mostly senior officers as well as some with special credentials, will have completed an intensive six-week training on the supervision of these offenders as well as the cognitive behavioral programming the offenders will receive.

The combination of intensive programming and specially trained officers, officials hope, will produce lower levels of recidivism, relapse and will improve employment and reintegration into the community. 

“We have set the bar high and we are hoping to see upwards toward 60 percent reduction of felony arrests during the first two years following the successful completion of the program,” said Minardi. “We really have done our homework the good news is there is a lot of research out there that says if you include these core components and target these high risk offenders [it works].”

One way the department will ensure that the new programs are working is a built-in evaluation program through a computerized system that will be used by those involved in the offenders' treatment and supervision.

According to Minardi, data will be collected from the start of the program and stored electronically so that the progress of individual programs and individuals themselves can be monitored.

“While we intend to do comprehensive evaluations with outcome measures, we [also] can pull reports all the time and see incremental risk factors. An officer can hit a button and see if the offender is improving or not improving,” she said. “We'll have instantaneous data about certain programs or strategies and which are more successful and we'll be able to measure and compare.”

In addition, substance abuse providers involved in the program will have access to offenders' records and can add information based on their progress.

According to Brokofsky, the department's new philosophy about treatment and programming was initiated from the ground up by a diverse group of individuals who knew there was a better way to work with these individuals.

After several years of meetings between corrections, probation, diversion and other providers the group is now able to see the fruits of its labor.

“We want to see people not being re-arrested and not ending up in institutions. We're taking about making them productive citizens. Seeing that these people have high school diplomas and have some kind of skills,” Brokofsy said, who believes that this is the direction of future programming in the state.

Once the initial pilot phase of the program is over, and if the programs prove successful, the state plans to expand the programs statewide.

Washington State Looks into Populations and Programming

Washington State officials have also been looking closely at the effectiveness of diversion programs. Last year, the state Department of Corrections received an evaluation of its Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative (DOSA) program that revealed the program was more effective for drug offenders than property offenders receiving the programs.

According to Steve Aos of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, which conducted the research, the institute looked at cost benefits of the program following an expansion of the group of eligible offenders who could be sentenced to DOSA.

In 1999, the state passed legislation that allowed property offenders to be included in the program as well as those who had actually committed drug offenses. The idea behind creating DOSA was to reduce the fiscal burden on the DOC by allowing non-violent offenders to serve part of their sentence in the community and provide offenders with chemical dependency treatment.

According to the Institute's research, 64 percent of those receiving DOSA sentences were convicted on drug offenses, 30 percent were property offenses and six percent were person offenses.

But the outcomes for the offenders involved in DOSA differed depending on their offense.

“Our study showed that the program lowers recidivism rates for drug offenders but was neutral for those who were property offenders,” said Aos. “When we did the cost benefit analysis, the economic benefits were attractive for the drug offenders, but not for offenders who were property offenders.”

According to Aos, the trade off – for state officials -- in terms of cost savings was less time in prison for certain offenders in exchange for completing drug treatment. But the recidivism results of the program are much stronger for those who had a specific drug offense.

With this information on DOSA, the state legislature was prompted last year to ask the Institute to conduct more in-depth research into short and long-term fiscal savings by implementing evidence-based treatment human services and corrections programs and policies, including those used in sentencing.

According to Aos, the study is supposed to provide an economic analysis of all the options and policy “levers” that the legislature has at its disposal to stabilize prison populations.

“We are looking on a full range of options-- prevention programs for children and decreasing crime in the long run, so if we want to avoid prison time down the road make some investments there,” said Aos. “We are looking at investments that are cheaper than prison.”

As a part of the new study, Aos said the Institute will look into juvenile justice programming as well as offenders in the adult system and it will investigate sentencing alternatives as well.

Based on the reaction to the Institute's previous study of the juvenile justice system in Washington State, Aos believes that the state will be ready to make the changes necessary to reduce recidivism and prison time after new research is concluded later this year.

The Institute's juvenile justice research resulted in the elimination of some programs that were not producing the desired results and the addition of other programs that the research showed would be more effective.

“There's a desire to spend the taxpayers' money wisely and to used evidence-based findings and to use the best findings out there to get the best return on the dollar and trying to bring that information to bear has been going on in a number of areas, not just criminal justice,” said Aos.

Latessa, who speaks at criminal justices conferences nationwide about the importance of evidence-based research, agrees that a trend has emerged to make corrections programming dollars count by improving outcomes.

“Nationally, I see a lot of interest in improving what we do with offenders in the community. Some states and jurisdictions are further ahead than others. My sense is there's an increasing awareness that we can have a significant effect on recidivism rates but we have to pay attention to what we are doing with these offenders,” he said.

Resources:

Washington State Institute of Public Policy  www.wsipp.wa.gov

University of Cincinnati – Center for Criminal Justice Research
http://www2.uc.edu/criminaljustice/CCJR.html