Matching Needs to Services: Prison Treatment Program Allocations

Abstract

The criminogenic needs of prison inmates are assessed to help guide their treatment plans, but inmates are often not matched to corresponding services to address those needs. A sample of 69,129 inmates in a state prison system was examined to identify those who completed treatment programs matched to their assessed needs and those who did not complete such programs. The odds of returning to prison within 3 years after release were compared for both groups. Of the eight need-specific domains examined, significant differences in the odds of prison returns were found for individuals identified with a Community Functioning need and for those identified with a Personal/Emotional need. That is, persons with either of these needs who completed suitable programs were less likely to return to prison compared with those with the same needs who did not complete suitable programs. Implications for future research are discussed.

Youth in Adult and Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Comparison of Services and Behavioral Management

“…This finding is encouraging given the recent evidence from a state-wide study on prison treatment plan and recividism. When the inmates completed the programs that were related to their assessed needs, especially in the case of personal/emotional need and community functioning, they were less likely to be reincarcerated after release (Long, Sullivan, Wooldredge, Pompoco, & Lugo, 2019).…”

Risk–need–responsivity: Evaluating need‐to‐service matching with reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance

“…Existing need-to-service matching studies have focused on its effectiveness for reducing recidivism (e.g., Long et al, 2019;Vieira et al, 2009;Vitopoulos et al, 2012), and aspects of its implementation (e.g., Drawbridge, Todorovic, et al, 2019;Haqanee, Peterson-Badali, & Skilling, 2014;Nelson & Vincent, 2018). The implementationrelated studies have generally evaluated practitioners' adherence to need-to-service matching strategies.…”

“…The key components of need‐to‐service matching, or its active ingredients, include: (1) aligning services in case management plans with justice‐involved persons' individual criminogenic needs (i.e., a good match between criminogenic needs and services); (2) leaving few criminogenic needs unaddressed (i.e., under‐prescription of services); (3) avoiding unnecessary service referrals for criminogenic needs that are not present (i.e., over‐prescription of services); and (4) over the course of supervision, achieving a high overall ratio of criminogenic needs matched with services (i.e., overall match ratio). Research indicates that need‐to‐service matching produces positive outcomes for youth and adults, such that those with a better match between their criminogenic needs and services in case plans evidence lower rates of reoffending (e.g., Kapoor, Peterson‐Badali, & Skilling, 2018; Long, Sullivan, Wooldredge, Pompoco, & Lugo, 2019; Peterson‐Badali et al., 2015).…”

Prison Rehabilitation Programs: Efficiency and Targeting

“…Assessment tools used to predict recidivism are now widespread in most jurisdictions: bail and sentencing judges (Stevenson and Doleac, 2019;Albright, 2019), parole board members (Berk, 2017), and probation officers (Kopf, 2014) use the assessment scores to determine the level of risk. However, the extent to which risk assessments can be used to provide targeted rehabilitation services is less understood (Long et al, 2019). Mastrobuoni and Terlizzese (2019) argue that targeting might play an important role, as they do not find that high-risk offenders benefit from moving from closed prisons to open prisons like their lower-risk counterparts.…”