Most Offender Rehabilitation Programs Don’t Work-A Path Forward? New Federal Report

Observations

Most offender rehabilitation and treatment programs don’t work.

But a new federal report suggests that mental health efforts could reduce recidivism by approximately 21 percent.

“Many want programs for offenders as a compassionate response to perceived inequities among the offender population. These programs routinely produce marginal results. Failure is not compassion. Failure is the opposite of compassion. We must do better.”

Author

Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.

Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University.

Article

There is a new federal report suggesting that we can reduce recidivism by approximately 20 percent with a focus on mental health and substance abuse programs. The report is summarized below.

This site offered an array of articles suggesting that rehabilitation programs for offenders either don’t work or have a very limited impact. For most, reductions in recidivism are less than ten percent, Crime in America.

Three evaluations from the National Institute of Justice and the US Sentencing Commission flatly state that program results do not reduce recidivism or offer slight reductions, National Institute of Justice. Additional evaluations suggest that treatment programs produce marginal results at best (link above).

Recidivism by released inmates is astounding; five out of six state prisoners were arrested at least once during the nine years after their release. There was an average of five arrests per offender for a total of two million crimes, Crime in America.

Program failure is a national tragedy that doesn’t serve anyone’s best interest. We have called for a vigorous research effort and a national conference to address the issue. It should be on par with cancer research considering the number of Americans victimized by crime.

Advocates

President Trump and endless others continue to advocate for programs; many simply don’t care if they work or not. Some want programs for offenders as a compassionate response to perceived inequities among the offender population. Failure is not compassion. Failure is the opposite of compassion.

Advocates cherrypick programs with better results, greatly exaggerate the findings, and offer them as a shield to prove that they are compassionate, evidence-based people. A ninety percent failure rate (if there are reductions) would be deemed a national tragedy in any other field. I will get an endless number of comments in social media forums citing obscure, methodologically challenged studies to prove that programs work.

Successful offenders understand that most programs are inadequate and only self-motivation guarantees success. They see programs as a half-hearted and somewhat cynical response to the issues they possess.

When challenged to come up with a new path, this site emphasized mental health and concurrent substance abuse efforts as our best hope.

Those in the field understand that you have to stabilize the offender first before you can offer meaningful programs. Data suggests that most offenders have mental health issues and backgrounds of child abuse and neglect and they self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. Nothing will work until those issues are addressed.

A New Federal Report

The President’s The Council of Economic Advisers seems to agree with our call for a reexamination of offender programs, and an emphasis on mental health and substance abuse. They offer a new report as to what works and what doesn’t (summation below).

The report is somewhat wonkish considering the emphasis on cost-effectiveness when the priority should be on protecting people from harm, but it does state:

1. Any prison reform agenda should include efforts to (a) base reforms on the best data available and (b) consistently measure results.

2. We find that there is great variation in the effectiveness across programs such that reallocation of budgets from poorly to well-performing programs may both lower spending and improve results.

3. Based on the literature, the most successful treatment programs are those that address the mental health and substance abuse problems of prisoners.

4. Educational programs, while common, have shown inconclusive results and require better-designed studies to adequately evaluate expected outcomes. In line with the principles of the Administration’s push for evidence-based intervention, there is need for additional work to improve evaluation methodologies in this area.

5. Using the treatment estimates from the literature, we conclude that mental health programs reduce recidivism by approximately 21 percent and substance abuse programs by 17 percent.

Thus we have a partial roadmap, and a focus on mental health and substance abuse as our best hope for success. But even here, the Council is admitting that the overwhelming number of offenders will continue to commit crime, harm others and recidivate. We still need to do better.

The President’s The Council of Economic Advisers-Summation (edited for readability)

We find that there is great variation in the effectiveness across programs such that reallocation of budgets from poorly to well performing programs may both lower spending and improve results. In addition, CEA finds evidence that certain individual programs can reduce crime as well as reduce spending by lowering long-run incarceration costs. Programs that save at least one dollar in crime and incarceration costs for every dollar spent are deemed cost effective.

More specifically, with a focus on rigorous studies of the programs that have been previously implemented, CEA finds that, on average, programs that address the prisoner’s mental health or substance abuse problems may reduce the cost of crime by about $0.92 to $3.31 per taxpayer dollar spent on prison reform and long-run incarceration costs by $0.55 to $1.96, for a total return of $1.47 to $5.27 per taxpayer dollar. Despite these positive returns, there are many programs—such as those in which the primary focus is education—for which the evidence base is inconsistent and rates of return more uncertain.

Overall, increased investment in better evidence is needed to guide future investments into programs to reduce recidivism. Many programs, even if they are found to be cost effective may have small sample sizes or unique characteristics that may be difficult to replicate or scale up, and some studies with high-quality research designs are too dated to provide needed insight. Carefully designed, broad-based national programs that target a wide variety of offenders in conjunction with carefully designed empirical evaluations would improve the ability of policymakers to allocate criminal justice funds to achieve the greatest possible social benefits.

The large social costs of crime are partly attributable to the high probability that prisoners exiting State and Federal facilities will commit crimes after leaving prison. More than threequarters of State offenders are re-arrested within five years of release (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016) and approximately 50 percent of released Federal prisoners will be re-arrested (United States Sentencing Commission, 2016) within 10 years of release.

Thus, efforts to reduce the recidivism rate for former prisoners could substantially lower the burden of crime in the United States. To address the high cost of crime, the Trump Administration has released principles on prison reform and re-entry programs, aiming to improve successful re-entry into society and reduce recidivism. The Administration intends to enact policies that:

Evaluate existing incentives for re-entry program participation and develop improvements that tie successful program completion to incentives while incarcerated.

Evaluate and implement evidence-based recidivism reduction and re-entry programs to promote the successful re-entry of Federal inmates.

Ensure all inmates have access to recidivism reduction programs that meet their needs by enhancing tools to reduce existing risk.

Expand inmate access-to-work programs to enable all eligible inmates to gain job skills that prepare them for successful re-entry from prison.

Evaluate and facilitate public and private partnerships aimed at improving employment opportunities for inmates before and after their release.

Prioritize funding and support Federal programs that have proven to be effective at reducing State prison recidivism.

Reviewing the evidence base, CEA finds that, on average, mental health treatment—specifically cognitive behavioral therapies—and substance abuse treatments can generate net social benefits. CEA does not recommend or endorse a particular program, as the success or failure of a given program may depend upon details beyond the scope of this report. However, we point out that a number of mental health and substance abuse programs can reduce crime and incarceration costs simultaneously.

We find that these programs can reduce crime when undertaken by an inmate suitable to the intended intervention. The reduction in crime constitutes a value of about $0.92 to $3.31 per taxpayer dollar spent. The reduction in long-run incarceration costs constitutes a value of about $0.55 to $1.96 per taxpayer dollar spent, for a total return of $1.47 to $5.27 per taxpayer dollar spent for mental health and drug treatments, respectively.

In addition to these programs, there is a large set of programs with insufficient evidence to be evaluated properly. One area particularly lacking in sufficient evidence is prison education programs, such as GED completion. The empirical studies that do exist on educational programs should be interpreted cautiously due to methodological issues such as selection biases in and out of programs.

In the face of this uncertainty, CEA estimates what the recidivism effects would have to be in order for these educational programs to break even, given their costs. We estimate that education programs need only reduce recidivism by about 2 percent in order to recover costs—a modest reduction. Greater investment in research to broaden the evidence base of these programs’ effectiveness would enable more rigorous evaluation.

Based on the literature, the most successful treatment programs are those that address the mental health and substance abuse problems of prisoners.

Using the treatment estimates from the literature, we conclude that mental health programs reduce recidivism by approximately 21 percent and substance abuse programs by 17 percent.

Educational programs, while common, have shown inconclusive results and require better-designed studies to adequately evaluate expected outcomes In line with the principles of the Administration’s push for evidence-based intervention, there is need for additional work to improve evaluation methodologies in this area.

Any prison reform agenda should include efforts to (a) base reforms on the best data available and (b) consistently measure results. For example, the Report of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking recommends that up to 1 percent of program administration resources be set aside to support evidence-building activities including data collection, program evaluation, and policy-relevant research.

Source

The President’s The Council of Economic Advisers

Contact

Contact us at crimeinamerica@gmail.com.

Media on deadline, contact leonardsipes@gmail.com.

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