Federal Reentry Court Programs: A Summary of Recent Evaluations

• NCJ Number: 236821
• Journal: Federal Probation Volume: 75 Issue: 2 Dated: September 2011 Pages: 64-73
• Author(s): Stephen E. Vance
• Date Published: September 2011
• Length: 10 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article summarizes the findings of recent evaluations of Federal reentry-court programs in the Federal districts of Oregon, Massachusetts, and Western Michigan.

Abstract

These three districts have established reentry court programs over the past 6 years. Such programs enable the court to impose graduated sanctions and positive reinforcement administered by a team that typically involves a judge, probation officer, assistant U.S. attorney, assistant Federal defender, and contract services provider. Within this general model, there is considerable variation. This article describes the features of the court reentry program in each of the three districts, along with an overview of an evaluation conducted for each program. The evaluations have provided mixed results regarding whether the programs reduce recidivism by clients. The evaluators of the Oregon program found that the comparison group outperformed the treatment group on multiple important measures; however, as advised by the evaluators, this conclusion should be interpreted with caution due to factors such as the small sample size and the initial project design. The evaluations of the Massachusetts and Western Michigan programs found that program participants were more likely to have positive outcomes compared to non-participants; however, as in the Oregon evaluation, the researchers advise caution in interpreting these findings due to such limitations as the small sample size. Future evaluations of reentry court programs should use larger sample sizes in order to improve the validity and reliability of the findings. Researchers might also consider examining the effect of recidivism of clients based on their risk level. A large body of research has shown that criminal justice interventions are more effective on higher risk offenders and may even increase recidivism for some lower risk offenders. 21 references