0 - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

included those clients who graduate before the CREST program was established. Once the
CREST program was established, virtually all KEY graduates were assigned to it. Hence
the KEY samples are nonrandom, and the KEY-only group serves as an historical
comparison for the KEY-CREST group.
Further, “Many of the so-called no treatment comparison group did get some treatment
help” (Inciardi et al., 1997:266). Researchers attempted to statistically control for several
extraneous factors including number of days in treatment, time since discharge, and number of
times previously incarcerated. Like other evaluations of prison-based TC, the research design
remains vulnerable to concerns over selection and attrition biases, as well as treatment migration
a
(Gartin, 1995)5.
The major outcome variables examined were self-reported arrests and self-reported drug
use. Drug testing was used to confirm selfreported drug use; unfortunately no criminal records
were checked to confirm inmate self-reports of recidivism. Results showed that drug-involved
offenders who participated in both the prison TC followed by treatment in the work-release center
(i.e., the “Key-Crest” group) had lower rates of drug use (25%) and self-reported rearrest (28%)
than drug-involved offenders who participated in shorter treatment programs. At 18 months after
release, drug offenders who received 12-1 5 months of treatment in prison followed by an
additional 6 months of drug treatment and job training were more than twice as likely to be drugfiee
than offenders who received prison-based treatment (Key) alone. Offenders who received
both forms of treatment (Key-Crest) were much more likely than offenders who received only
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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not
been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.