When Frontloading Backfires: Exploring the Impact of Outsourcing Correctional Interventions on Mechanisms of Social Control

Abstract

This study demonstrates the effects of frontloading rehabilitative services to parolees through third-party residential and community-based programs. Although outsourcing treatment responsibilities to contracted reentry facilities is an increasingly common feature of postrelease supervision, the role these facilities play in reentry management and recidivism outcomes remains largely unexplored. Here, several common recidivism outcomes for parolees who attended private treatment facilities upon release are compared to those of parolees who did not. We conducted Correctional Programs Checklist assessments on each treatment site to investigate whether recidivism outcomes vary by level of programmatic quality. Our findings indicate that parolees who receive frontloaded services are significantly less likely to be rearrested or reconvicted for new crimes within eighteen months of release. These findings held across levels of programmatic quality, with larger reductions observed for programs of higher quality, and align with broader emphases in community corrections on risk assessment and organizational demands for efficiency.

Better to Stay Home: Evaluating the Impact of Day Reporting Centers on Offending

“… 4. To our knowledge, there are currently no studies available that investigate CRC program participation as a dependent variable. Thus, we use similar matching variables to those employed in prior studies that have investigated post prison release to residential treatment resources (see Ostermann & Hyatt, 2017). Practically, we draw our data from the same management information system that parole board panel members use to gather the data that informs their decisions about parole release and resource allocation.…”

Parole Officer Decision-Making Before Parole Revocation: Why Context Is Key When Delivering Correctional Services

“…This process should be proactive, with these early assessments guiding the subsequent decisions of both releasing authorities and parole officers. This treatment strategy is referred to as frontloading and is in keeping with the finding that the primary months after release from prison are the most trying for reintegrating populations and so these services have the most potential to impact outcomes (Ostermann & Hyatt, 2017;Petersilia, 2003;Solomon et al, 2005).…”

Agency-level Perceptions of Monetary Sanctions: Current Landscape and Impediments to Reform

“…Taken together, these studies highlight a range of negative consequences brought on by legal debts and attempts at their collection, which includes civil penalties and criminal violations leading to reincarceration (Harris, Evans, and Beckett 2010). As a result of these works, and a growing concern over the technical revocation process (Lin, Grattet, and Petersilia 2010; Ostermann and Hyatt 2018), a growing chorus has called for the reform—or even abolition—of monetary sanctions (Beckett and Harris 2011; Harris 2020; Link, Hyatt, and Ruhland 2020; although see Ruback 2011). Absent from this discussion, however, has been the perspective of the governmental stakeholders charged with applying and collecting financial sanctions and issuing penalties for nonpayment.…”