0 - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Reincarceration
A minimum time at risk of six months or greater was used to select cases for
reincarceration analyses. Next, we assigned all inmates in TC programs to the experimental group,
and all inmates in Education and Outpatient groups to the Comparison
The third
selection criterion was the type of release mechanism (Table 15): we excluded inmates (n = 13)
whose “release” was artificial (Le., inmates who were deceased, now serving a previous sentence,
or those simply given an administrative transfer). These selection factors left us with a sample of
149 inmates in the experimental (TC) group, and 497 inmates in the comparison group. Sample
characteristics are presented in Table 16.
The TC and Comparison groups did not differ on amount of time at risk since their release
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fiom prison (Table 16). As expected, the two groups did differ substantially on the variable most
relevant to the formation of comparison groups. The TC group had a mean total treatment
exposure nearly 20 times as great as the Comparison group, justiijing the use of the response-
dosage model as a means of forming valid comparison groups. The two groups differed on a
number of other selection criteria, though, indicating the need to use either matching or statistical
controls to control for selection bias. For example, the TC group tended to have higher criminal
history scores (both prior and current), and a higher assessed need for drug treatment (although
the Comparison group clearly evidenced a high need for treatment also, well within in the TCeligible
range).
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31 We did not include Alumni inmates (TC graduates) in the experimental group, since those
inmates were no longer in a TC program by the time our study began, and they were distinguished
fiom their colleagues by virtue of the fact that they had not yet been able to secure their release
via either parole or sentence expiration.
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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.