To evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic communities (TCs) in terms of reducing post-prison recidivism for individuals with substance use disorder. Propensity score matching was used to create statistically balanced groups of individuals released from (a) minimum- and medium-security TCs in Illinois and (b) non-TC prisons. Logistic regression models then estimated the effect of TC treatment on several types of post-release arrest and reincarceration. Treatment at both the minimum- and medium-security TCs led to reductions in general arrests and reincarceration at one and three years post-release. The medium-security TC also had significant effects on each arrest subtype measured (i.e., violent, drug, and domestic violence). For all outcomes, the effects of treatment at a TC diminished over time. The results align with prior literature showing that TCs can reduce recidivism. However, more research is needed on the moderating and mediating mechanisms that account for these effects.

Recognizing the current opioid crisis among justice-involved individuals and the need to intervene at the intersection of justice and community health, the JCOIN TCU hub study explores outcomes associated with a multi-level hybrid implementation approach. The study capitalizes on facilitated collaboration, training, and cross-system data sharing to leverage improvements in criminal justice (CJ) and community behavioral health (CBH) interagency collaboration. The goal is to improve local community public health and safety outcomes for reentering justice-involved individuals who have a history of (or are at risk for) using opioids. The study compares two implementation strategies: one (vertical) in which all units in a community are trained and begin the program simultaneously and another (horizontal) in which one lead-off unit in the community is trained as a prototype of the program, the prototype is tested and refined, and then the lead-off unit helps to train other units within the community. Specific aims are to 1) increase access to and retention in CBH and medications for opioid use disorder services; 2) improve outcomes associated with public health and safety; 3) compare two implementation strategies on systems-level outcomes designed to increase service initiation and receipt of implementation and services; and 4) examine the impact of these strategies on justice-involved individuals' outcomes. The study examines both implementation and implementation-effectiveness, seeking to answer the questions of which implementation strategy is most effective for rapid and sustainable uptake of evidence-based practices and for increasing service linkage and initiation, services retention, and improved opioid-related public health safety outcomes. The study uses a hybrid type 3 study design. The study's primary aim is to compare two implementation strategies and two interventions at two levels (client and system), with a secondary aim to assess client-level outcomes associated with the trial. The study design integrates 2 robust methodologies (stepped wedge and cluster randomized trial), and plans to include 18 research performance sites (communities) located in Texas, New Mexico, and Illinois. The study will contribute to the JCOIN network's effort to establish a national consortium of investigators examining promising strategies to enhance the capabilities and capacity of the justice system to more effectively address the opioid epidemic.

This study employs classification tree analysis (CTA) to address whether 3 groups of violent offenders have similar or different risk factors for violent recidivism while on probation. A sample of 1,344 violent offenders on probation was classified as generalized aggressors (N = 302), family only aggressors (N = 321), or nonfamily only aggressors (N = 717). The strongest predictor of violent recidivism while on probation was whether the offender was a generalized aggressor or not, with generalized aggressors more likely to be arrested for new violent crimes. Prior arrests for violent crimes predicted violent recidivism of generalized aggressors, but did not significantly predict violent recidivism of family only and nonfamily only aggressors. For generalized aggressors and family only batterers, treatment noncompliance was an important risk predictor of violent recidivism. CTA compared to logistic regression classified a higher percentage of cases into low-risk and high-risk groups, provided higher improvement in classification accuracy of violent recidivists beyond chance performance, and provided a better balance of false positives and false negatives. The implications for the risk assessment and domestic violence literature are discussed.

Despite all the attention paid to the growing prison populations in the United States since the early 1990s, it remains, as it has throughout recent history, that probation accounts for the largest portion of those under the custody of the criminal justice system. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that at the end of 2015, there were more than 3.7 million adults under the supervision of U.S. probation authorities, compared to 1.5 million in prison, 870,000 on parole, and 728,000 in local jails. And while probation is not often thought about within the context of “mass incarceration” in the United States, probation directly impacts prison and jail populations in two specific ways. First, a sentence of probation for a felony offense is the most frequent alternative to a prison sentence. Second, the revocation of probation can directly lead to the imposition of a sentence to prison or jail, depending on the nature of the original conviction offense. During 2015, in the United States, it is estimated that 12% of all probationers exiting supervision were incarcerated due to probation revocation, which translates to an estimate of more than 233,000 probationers annually. Probation revocation means that the sentencing court has determined that a violation of the conditions of probation have occurred, and because of this, the original probation sentence is no longer appropriate. As a result of a probation sentence being revoked, the sentencing court imposes a different (usually more serious) sanction on the offender. Often, those on probation for a felony offense who have their probation revoked are sentenced to prison, leading to their admission to prison. Indeed, given this link, scholars and practitioners have identified reducing probation revocation as one strategy to reducing prison populations, and jurisdictions often focus on reducing probation revocations as a means to lowering their commitments to prison. Probation revocation can result from either new arrests or violations of technical aspects of the sentence, such as missed appointments or non-compliance with treatment orders. However, whether or not a probation sentence is revoked as a result of these violations varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This variation in the use of probation revocation as a response to violations of probation illustrates the localized nature of revocation proceedings, and attempts to reduce these disparities have taken many forms. These efforts to reduce the impact of probation revocations on prison admissions have ranged from providing local jurisdictions with financial incentives to respond to revocation-eligible violations with sanctions other than incarceration, to legislative efforts to prohibit sentences to prison as a response to probation revocations stemming from technical violations or instances where public safety is not threatened.

Review Article| December 01 2017 Two Paths to Policy: Data, Discretion, and Local-Level Problems in Illinois’ Sentencing Reform Process Don Stemen, Don Stemen Associate Professor and Chairperson Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Loyola University Chicago Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar David Olson David Olson Professor Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Loyola University Chicago Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Federal Sentencing Reporter (2017) 30 (2): 138–145. https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2017.30.2.138 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Don Stemen, David Olson; Two Paths to Policy: Data, Discretion, and Local-Level Problems in Illinois’ Sentencing Reform Process. Federal Sentencing Reporter 1 December 2017; 30 (2): 138–145. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2017.30.2.138 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFederal Sentencing Reporter Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2018 Vera Institute of Justice2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This study, using data from a large sample of prison releasees, examined the similarities and differences in men's and women's risk factors for recidivism involving rearrest for any crime and rearrest for a violent crime during an average 3.4-year follow-up period. Logistic regressions revealed several gender differences. Prior incarceration, time served, and specific types of prior arrest histories had differential associations with women's and men's overall and violent recidivism. Age, race, and conviction offense were gender-specific risk factors for overall recidivism, and education level and marital status were gender-specific risk factors for violent recidivism. Implications for risk assessment are discussed.

In this study, factors influencing the imposition and collection of probation fees in a sam- ple of more than 2,400 Illinois adult probationers were examined. Predictor variables were grouped into two major categories (probationer and sentence characteristics), and four different measures related to probation fees were studied: 1) whether or not pro- bation fees were imposed, 2) when imposed, the total amount of probation fees ordered, 3) the monthly rate of probation fees, and 4) the percentage of fees paid/collected. Multivariate analyses revealed that some factors were consistent predictors of all mea- sures of probation fees (imposition, amount, and collection rates), while other factors were only predictive of some of these measures. Probationer characteristics, including race, income, and prior convictions, were predictive of whether fees were imposed and the collection rate, while environmental conditions, such as whether the probationer was sentenced in a rural jurisdiction or whether other financial conditions of probation were imposed, such as criminal fines, were predictive of all three measures of probation fees. The pressure for government agencies to increase their effectiveness and efficiency, while at the same time reducing the burden on taxpayers, has resulted in a number of sig- nificant changes in the ways in which public agencies are financed. One mechanism through which public organizations have increased their resources has been the assess- ment of user fees, which place more of the burden for supporting the cost of government services on those who disproportionately use them. Although this practice has been adopted for many types of government services, such as waste removal, the provision of water, electricity, and other utilities, and maintenance of roads, the widespread applica- tion of user fees, as opposed to fines, by the criminal justice system is relatively new. Corrections is one component of the criminal justice system that has applied the practice of making "users" pay for services, particularly for community-based supervi- sion programs. Indeed, many criminal justice practitioners and policymakers view fees

Capital Punishment Reforms in Illinois: Comparing the Views of Police, Prosecutors, and Public Defenders Robert M. Lombardo, David E. Olson Abstract On 9 March 2011, Governor Patrick Quinn abolished capital punishment in Illinois stating that the state’s system of imposing the death penalty was inherently flawed. Quinn’s announcement followed an eleven-year effort to end the death penalty that began with a 2000 moratorium on executions imposed by then Governor George Ryan. This moratorium was the direct result of the appellate reversal of a series of death-row convictions. Prompted by these reversals, Ryan also created the Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment to study the use of the death penalty in Illinois. As a result of this effort, comprehensive legislation was enacted to reform the Illinois death penalty system, and the Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee was formed to gauge the implementation and impact of the reforms. Working with the Committee, the authors’ surveyed 413 Illinois police departments, 102 Illinois State’s Attorneys’ Offices, and all 99 Public Defender’s Offices in an effort to determine the extent to which criminal justice agencies had implemented the requirements of the capital punishment reform legislation, and whether there were any significant barriers to the implementation of the legislative requirements. This paper reports the results of this inquiry, and argues that capital punishment ended in Illinois because of the complexity of the death penalty and the perceived inability to devise a system free of racial, geographic, and economic bias and not the failure of the criminal justice community to implement the reforms recommended by the Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jlcj.v2n2a6

This article examines recidivism among a cohort of formerly incarcerated people released from the Sheridan Correctional Center (SCC), a dedicated drug treatment facility based on a Therapeutic Community (TC) model of prison-based drug treatment. After an average of 6.9 years post-release, the SCC releasees had a 15% lower likelihood of recidivism than the comparison group, and a 44% reduction in the likelihood of recidivism when both prison-based drug treatment and aftercare programming were accessed. The current analyses showed that the beneficial effects of prison-based drug treatment were bolstered by aftercare services and continued long after release from prison.

In 2002, the Kendall County Probation and Court Services Department implemented a program designed to divert youth charged with illegal possession of alcohol offenses from the formal justice system. The Youth Education Class (YEC), carried out jointly by the Kendall County Probation and Court Services Department and the Kendall County Health Department, is designed to provide youth charged with first-time alcohol and drug-related offenses with education and information, over the course of a 5-week period, regarding the health and legal risks associated with alcohol and drug use. Youth are ordered to the program by the Kendall County Court, and participation in the program is either part of a formal sentence to supervision or ordered in lieu of a formal case disposition. Participants are required to attend 5 sessions of the program, and are also required to complete a written test at the conclusion of the course to gauge their understanding and retention of the material presented in the class. In addition to attending the classes, youth ordered to the program are also required to comply with financial conditions ordered by the court, which include a participation fee for the program. The curriculum is delivered to cohorts of youth—roughly 15 youth at a time—at different points during the year. In order to systematically examine the youth served by the program, and the post-program patterns of rearrest/ recidivism for the youth who go through the program, in 2012 the Kendall County Probation and Courts Services Department requested that Loyola University Chicago’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology assist them in performing research to examine the characteristics of the youth served by the program and the extent and nature of post-program arrests for youth who matriculate through the program. Following approval of the project from the Chief Circuit Judge, and Loyola University’s Institutional Review Board, Dr. David Olson and a group of students from Loyola University collected data on-site at the Kendall County Probation and Court Services Department during 2012, and completed data analyses in 2013. This bulletin summarizes the results of that research.

• Between 1993 and 2011, an increasing proportion of felony probationers in Illinois were accounted for by females, whites, Hispanics, and older probationers. • The majority of felons discharged from probation were successfully terminated from supervision throughout the period examined. The proportion of felons discharged from probation as a result of a revocation of probation for either a technical violation or a new offense remained stable, and relatively low (at or below 10 percent statewide), throughout the time period examined. • Success on probation can mean less reliance on prison, but failure on probation can result in commitment to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Individuals who had their probation revoked or were reconvicted of a new crime while on probation accounted for roughly 15 percent of all those sentenced to prison, a proportion that remained relatively stable through the time period examined. • The number of convicted felons sentenced to probation in Illinois spiked during the late 1980s through 2002, reaching 35,000 felony probation sentences in 2002 and accounting for over one-half of all sentences imposed on convicted felons. As with felons sentenced to prison, much of this growth in felony probation sentences during the 1990s was fueled by increases in the number of Class 4 felony sentences. • Overall, the proportion of convicted felons sentenced to prison decreased between the mid-1990s and 2010, a pattern consistent across all felony classes (Class 1, 2, 3, and 4 felonies). The decreased use of probation for Class 1 and 2 felonies appeared to be primarily due to an increasing proportion of these crimes now being non-probationable (i.e., mandatory prison sentences), while the decreased use of probation for Class 3 and 4 felonies does not appear to be due to an increase in the number of these offenses being non-probationable. • As a result of these changes, from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s, an increasing proportion of felony probationers in Illinois were convicted of Class 4 felonies, the least serious of the felony offenses in Illinois, and a decreasing proportion of probationers were convicted of a Class 2 felony.

Although considerable attention has been paid to the outcomes of adults released from prison, a notable shortcoming of the evolving reentry literature is the minimal inclusion of juveniles in recidivism analyses. Through an examination of administrative data collected by the Illinois Department of Corrections for 1,894 youth released from Illinois Youth Centers (IYC) in 2003, we sought to determine the rate at which juveniles were returned to either an IYC or an adult prison within a six-year follow-up period, and how youth demographic, legal, and social characteristics were predictive of return to prison. The analyses found that approximately 45% of the youth were returned to a juvenile facility within six years, and when admission into an adult prison was included, the recidivism rate increased to 62%. Logistic regression showed some consistencies and differences in the relationship between youth characteristics and return to either a juvenile or adult prison within the follow-up period.

 A dramatic increase in the number of arrests for felony-level drug offenses, with arrests for violations of Illinois' Controlled Substances Act climbing from 20,000 per year in the mid- A doubling in the number of felony cases filed, convicted and sentenced between the 1980s and 2000s (pages 4-5);  A slow, but steady increase in the proportion of convicted felons sentenced to prison, with fewer than 42 percent of felons sentenced to prison in the 1980s to 50 percent in 2009 (pages 5-6);  An increasing number of crimes that carry mandatory prison sentences, but a growing proportion of prison admissions accounted for by probationable offenses. In 1990, 45 percent of those sentenced to prison were eligible for probation, compared to 55 percent in 2009 (page 6);  Longer lengths of stay in prison for more serious felony class offenses (pages 9-10); and,  An increasing number of crimes that were misdemeanors that are now felony-level offenses (pages 11-12). In 2009, more than 125,000 adults were under a form of correctional supervision, including probation, prison, or mandatory supervised release, for a felony conviction in Illinois, almost double the number recorded in 1989. Despite dramatic reductions in reported crime in Illinois from the early 1990s through 2008, correctional populations —including probationers, prison inmates and those on mandatory supervised release —increased from fewer than 60,000 in 1985 to more than 120,000 since 1998 (Figure 1). This dramatic growth in the state's correctional population can be attributed to a number of significant changes, including: