Preparing Individuals for Community Reentry: Using a Recovery Capital Framework to Assess Recovery Outcomes Post-Release from Prison

Background Prison-based substance use disorder treatment programs aim to enhance the assets and skills available to individuals in recovery before their release from prison; however, research examining how these gained assets and skills predict recovery outcomes in the community is limited. This study addresses this gap using a recovery capital framework.Methods Data were collected from 393 individuals who participated in prison-based substance use disorder treatment as part of the Geographic Variation in Opioid Addiction Treatment (GATE) study. We assessed the relationship between a recovery capital score indicating remission and its individual domains during incarceration and three outcomes after prison release: return to drug use, employment, and stable housing.Results Recovery capital scores indicative of remission predicted a lower likelihood of returning to drug use (OR: 0.38, p ≤ 0.01), increased likelihood of gaining employment (OR: 3.12, p ≤ 0.001), and increased likelihood of gaining stable housing (OR: 1.93, p ≤ 0.05) after prison release. Results varied across individual recovery capital domains for each outcome.Conclusions By assessing the post-release outcomes of returning to drug use, establishing employment, and obtaining stable housing by individual domains of RC, this research provides meaningful insight that may further support existing or novel programming in prisons to meet individuals’ needs.