Improving public safety and the welfare of justice-involved individuals with residential community correctional programs

Greater use of residential community correctional programs for addressing needs of justice-involved individuals versus more punishment-oriented methods of supervision (post-release control, intensive supervised probation) hold promise for facilitating desistance from crime and improving public safety. However, useful assessments of these programs require valid comparison groups and within-group analyses of the importance of residential population composition versus facility factors for shaping differences in post-release performance. Case control matching was used to compare (1) Ohio halfway houses to post-release control for reducing an incarcerated person’s odds of re arrest, reconviction, and imprisonment during a 5-year period, and (2) Ohio community based correctional facilities to intensive supervised probation for the same outcomes. Multilevel modeling was used to assess individual versus program effects on the odds of subsequent imprisonment, with halfway houses and community based correctional facilities examined separately. Halfway houses were superior to post-release control for reducing reconvictions and prison sentences whereas community based correctional facilities were more effective than intensive supervised probation for reducing rearrests but less effective for reducing reconvictions and prison sentences. Program factors matter for facility-level performance. Halfway house performance might depend in part on (a) ratios of full-time treatment delivery staff to residents, (b) provision of in-house aftercare services, and (c) board certification or licensure for treatment delivery staff. Factors to consider for community based correctional facilities include number of target areas addressed and levels of resident violence.