Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of Women's Re-Entry in New Jersey - Through a Black Intersectional Lens

Abstract

Justice-impacted women are understudied and in the state of New Jersey, Black people are overrepresented in the justice system (Nellis, 2021). This outcome evaluation examined if Residential Community Release Programs (RCRPs) are effective at reducing returns to prison compared to women who were released directly from prison with race as a key study variable. A total of 885 women's technical violation data using a three-year fixed follow-up period was retrieved from the New Jersey's Department of Corrections. The RCRP released women were compared to the prison released women and were matched on several covariates using a coarsened exact matching (CEM) procedure. RCRPs reduced technical violation returns but only reached significance for White women, potentially due to the Black women sample being statistically underpowered. This study calls to invest more into gender responsive re-entry programs in New Jersey and to investigate further how Black women can be better served during re-entry.