Moving Closer to Home Before Release: Evaluating a Step-Down Strategy to Transfer Adults in State Prisons to Local Correctional Systems

The overarching goal was to conduct process, impact, and cost-effectiveness evaluations for the joint Massachusetts Department of Correction (MA DOC) and Hampden County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) step-down reentry program. The research team seeks to provide policy guidance to the MA DOC, HCSO, and other states seeking a local step-down reentry program model. … In the report we provide a range of example step-down program implementation costs (from essential programming to a comprehensive set of recommended programs), but we refer practitioners and policymakers to an online tool to make flexible decisions when adopting a stepdown program. Other counties in Massachusetts are increasingly adopting step-down reentry programming, and the key results are available in several formats for practitioners.