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The U.S. Department of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Centers program has supported after-school programs since 1998. Research on the effects of afterschool programs has been inconclusive, leading to an ongoing debate about their effects on children's outcomes. This paper presents evidence from a national evaluation which examined the impacts of 26 21st Century after-school programs in 12 school districts. A total of 2,308 elementary students who were eligible for and interested in attending a 21st Century Community Learning Center were randomly assigned either to the 21st Century center group (1,258 students) or to a control group (1,050 students). Impact findings are based on school records data, student surveys, parent surveys, teacher surveys, and the Stanford Achievement Test in reading. Key findings include reduced parent care after school, increased care by other adults after school, no impact on self-care, improved feelings of safety after school, no impact on academic achievement as measured by reading test scores or grades, and higher levels of negative behavior among the treatment group relative to the control group on multiple outcomes, including suspensions, teachers calling students' parents about behavior, and students being disciplined by teachers.

Dramatically increasing incarceration rates in the United States have led to large concentrations of formerly imprisoned people in poverty-stricken urban areas. Therefore, identifying ways to help inmates who exhibit multiple, serious problems and who are at great risk of experiencing poor postrelease outcomes is especially important to urban communities, as well as to service providers and policymakers concerned about these communities. Our research provides evidence about the effectiveness of one strategy, called Health Link, which recruited adult women and adolescent men while they were incarcerated in a New York City jail and offered case management services during the especially challenging first year after release. About 1,400 participants who enrolled during a 3-year period were randomly assigned either to a group that was eligible for intensive discharge planning services and community-based case management services or to a group eligible for less-intensive discharge planning and no community-based services. We investigated whether the availability of these services reduced rates of drug use, HIV risk, and rearrest. Using data from interviews and hair analysis to measure impacts during a 1-year follow-up period after clients' release from jail, we detected increased participation in drug treatment programs and weak evidence for reduced drug use. However, we did not observe reductions in rearrest rates or in activities with high risk of HIV infection. We conclude that a well-executed case management program can make modest differences in a few short-term outcomes of former inmates. However, the intervention did not lead to the hoped-for changes across a range of outcomes that would clearly indicate greater success in community reintegration or improved health.

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