A Washington State reentry program that used $2 million of federal funding for 131 released prisoners, “Going Home: The Washington State Reentry Project”, has, after 18 months, had very little success, with criminal reconviction rates as follows: 15% for a violent felony; 43% for a felony; and 4% for a misdemeanor, for a total of 62 %.
The program utilizes the latest design ideas from criminological professionals, with the start of the prisoner’s involvement in the program at least 18 months prior to being released from prison, and connecting with community advisors at each program site, with advisor responsibilities including “preparing neighborhoods for the return of offenders through community education. They also developed lists of resources for offenders.” (p. 2)
As the project has only been in existence for 18 months they do not feel they have had the proper amount of time (36 months) to evaluate—using a control group—so the final results will be available in July of 2011.
Given the results so far, this could be another well-funded program that results in program participants’ recidivating at higher rates than the control group, like the Greenlight program in New York and the drug abuse program in California, as noted in a previous post.
The organization responsible for preparing this interim report—Washington State Institute for Public Policy— conduct some of the best criminal justice evaluative work in the country, using random selection and control groups.
An excerpt from the report detail webpage.
“The Institute was contracted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Department of Corrections’ “Going Home Project.” The program was designed to transition younger, high-risk, violent offenders into the community. To date, not enough time has passed to conduct an outcome evaluation with a comparison group and 36-month follow-up. This interim report outlines our research design and provides 18-month recidivism rates for program participants.”
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.