About the Report The Report, Part II: Review of the Re-Entry Process:

chapters and policy statements:
About the Report of the Re-Entry Council

Policy Statement 12, Recommendation A

Determine the extent to which existing services are effective and sufficient to meet the demand for substance abuse treatment.

Before implementing new substance abuse treatment programs, corrections administrators or other policymakers should evaluate existing treatment programs in the facilities for which they are responsible. Research should be conducted to determine the number of prisoners or jail inmates with treatment needs and the characteristics of their need, as well as the number of individuals who are receiving treatment and the nature and effectiveness of their treatment.

This research can be conducted by an in-house evaluation staff or an external research organization that has been contracted to perform the survey. Researchers from universities or community colleges or researchers already working within the community-based substance abuse system may be able to provide expertise that is either difficult or not cost-effective to develop internally. In addition, these academic and/ or community-based researchers may have information about models and precedents for treatment capacity studies, as well as resources that may be available to fund the research. (See sidebar, "Examples of Substance Abuse Evaluation Studies and Resources.")

Examples of Substance Abuse Evaluation Studies and Resources

Federal, state, and private resources may be available to provide research assistance to jurisdictions seeking to evaluate drug treatment needs and programs. Correctional administrators should work with community-based substance abuse systems administrators to tap the resources provided for research by programs like those listed below. Limited resources can then be used to leverage additional funds for studying treatment capacity and needs in the correctional system.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

SAMHSA is the federal agency charged with improving the quality and availability of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitative services to reduce illness, death, disability, and cost to society resulting from substance abuse and mental illnesses. In 1992, SAMHSA established the State Treatment Needs Assessment Program (STNAP) to assist states in measuring the prevalence of substance abuse in their respective jurisdictions by conducting a group of related population studies. Though the program has now been suspended, the resources made available through this program have also been used to analyze treatment needs and demand. http://www.samhsa.gov/

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

NIDA is the division of the National Institutes of Health charged with bringing science to bear on the problems of drug abuse and addiction. Currently, NIDA supports a five-year, nationwide initiative regarding drug treatment within the criminal justice system. Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS) was established as a network of researchers in seven regional centers examining different integrated system-level treatment methods for criminal offenders throughout the country. The purpose of this initiative is to expand knowledge about empirically supported treatment methods to improve offender outcomes and to unravel the barriers to effective drug treatment services within the criminal justice system.http://www.nida.nih.gov/ or http://www.drugabuse.gov/

Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and National Institute of Justice (NIJ)

"Breaking the Cycle" (BTC) was a joint project of ONDCP and NIJ that tested the idea that early identification and assessment of drug-using defendants, followed by individualized treatment, intensive supervision, and strong judicial oversight, could reduce drug use and crime. The project was implemented in four diverse locations. A comprehensive evaluation was released in 2003 that concluded that the BTC model was an effective alternative to pretrial detention and suggested that coordinated intervention to address drug use among offenders was a valuable strategy. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov

The State of Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services

The state of Wisconsin implemented a "Substance Abuse Treatment Needs Assessment Project" to examine drug use and treatment capacity among Wisconsin residents. Five studies were completed under this project: a Statewide Household Survey; a Pregnant Women Survey; an Arrestee Survey; a Treatment Capacity Survey; and a County Composite Indicators Study. Findings suggested that only 21 percent of those individuals in need of treatment were able to obtain services. http://www.dhfs.state.wi.us

In addition to determining needed and existing capacity, corrections administrators should evaluate programs to determine their validity and effectiveness. Corrections administrators should work with state alcohol and drug directors or other substance abuse systems administrators to develop common treatment standards and outcome measures and to collect data using established reporting methodologies. They should also take steps to share aggregated client-level data (data about the entire treated population, rather than about individuals) with other treatment providers, in order to promote better information gathering and analysis as well as, ultimately, improved treatment outcomes. (See Policy Statement 5, Systems Integration and Coordination, for more on client-level data aggregation.) Validated tools such as the Correctional Program Assessment Inventory (CPAI) can help corrections administrators determine whether a given program has an evidence base.[17] The CPAI is a structured approach to evaluating how well a program corresponds to what is known about effective offender rehabilitation. By assessing programs in a number of different areas such as client assessment and staff characteristics, the CPAI can provide a research-based estimate as to how successful the program may be in reducing recidivism. Finally, administrators should also set up some quality assurance features to ensure that ongoing treatment programs continue to provide the services and benefits they were designed to produce.  (See Policy Statement 6, Measuring Outcomes and Evaluating the Impact of a Re-Entry Initiative for further discussion of evaluation measures.)

  1. Paul Gendreau and Don A. Andrews, Correctional Program Assessment Inventory, 6th ed. (Ottawa, Canada: Correctional Services Canada, 1996). Available online at www.csc-scc.gc.ca. back
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