Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
D'Amico, R., & Kim, H. (2008). Evaluation of seven Second Chance Act Adult Demonstration Programs: Impact findings at 30 months. Oakland, CA: Social Policy Research Associates. Retrieved from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service website: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/251702.pdf.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of the Second Chance Act (SCA) Adult Demonstration Program on employment, earnings, and recidivism.
- The study was a randomized controlled trial involving a sample of people recently or soon to be released from incarceration. The primary data sources included administrative data on employment and earnings from the National Directory of New Hires, state and local corrections records of recidivism, and 18-month follow-up survey data on employment, earnings, and recidivism. The authors used a statistical model to compare the outcomes of treatment and control group members, both overall and among groups with higher and lower risk of recidivism.
- The study found that the SCA program had no impacts on earnings, employment, or recidivism. Further, several recidivism outcomes from the administrative data sources demonstrated an increase in crime or crime-related activities. Among those in the sample at lower risk for recidivism, the study found that the program was associated with a larger number of reconvictions 30 months after random assignment.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that any estimated effects for the full sample would have been attributable to the SCA Adult Demonstration Program and not to other factors had the study found statistically significant effects. The quality of causal evidence of the analyses by risk-level is low because the authors did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects for the risk subgroups are attributable to the SCA Adult Demonstration Program; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
The Second Chance Act (SCA) Adult Demonstration Program
Features of the Intervention
The SCA was signed into law in 2008, enabling the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to award grants to nonprofit organizations and government agencies with the goal of reducing recidivism among those who had been incarcerated in jails and prisons. Since 2008, hundreds of grants have been awarded to different organizations to implement or improve reentry services. This study focused on seven agencies that received grant funds in the first round of SCA Adult Demonstration Program funding.
Services offered by grantees to SCA participants varied and included case management, including the development of a reentry plan and needs assessment; education and literacy services; vocational and job placement services; housing services; substance abuse treatment; and mental and physical health care services. Some services grantees offered directly through agencies, and others they provided using partners through referrals or on a fee-for-service basis.
The program serves people who were soon to be or were recently released from incarceration and were considered moderate to high risk of recidivism.
Features of the Study
The study was a randomized controlled trial. The treatment and control groups were identified and assigned within each grantee’s system for all seven grantees. The study included 966 participants across the grantees nationwide. Grantees served between 77 and 202 SCA participants each. Of the total 966 participants, 606 (63 percent) were assigned to the treatment group and 360 (37 percent) to the control group.
Participants in the treatment group received individualized SCA services, and participants in the control group could not receive SCA services, although they could obtain other services from the SCA grantees as well as similar services elsewhere in the community. The primary data sources included baseline information forms, data from the management information system of each grantee, administrative data from the state and local criminal justice agencies, employment data from the National Directory of New Hires, follow-up survey for participants, and financial data. The authors used a statistical model to compare the outcomes of treatment and control group members, accounting for background characteristics.
Participants were mostly male (78 percent treatment, 80 percent control). About half were white, followed by about one-third African American, and a smaller percentage American Indian or Alaska Native (13 percent treatment, 16 percent control). In both groups, the largest proportion of participants (about 23 percent) were between the ages of 26 and 30. About half the participants had been incarcerated on 5 or more separate occasions before random assignment, and about 54 percent were incarcerated for more than two years in their current or most recent sentence before random assignment. The majority had worked some time in the past (93 percent treatment, 89 percent control) and just over half of both groups were not employed at the time of most recent incarceration before random assignment.
Study Sites
- Kentucky [State] Department of Corrections
- Oklahoma [State] Department of Corrections
- South Dakota [State] Department of Corrections
- Allegheny County Department of Human Services (Pennsylvania)
- Marion County Sheriff’s Office (Oregon)
- San Francisco Department of Public Health (California)
- San Mateo County Division of Health and Recovery Services (California)
Findings
Employment
- People in the treatment group were no more likely to be employed in the fifth and sixth quarters after random assignment than people in the control group.
Earnings
- People in the treatment group were no more likely to have higher earnings in the fifth and sixth quarters after random assignment than people in the control group.
Recidivism
- At 18 months and 30 months after random assignment, treatment group members had a higher average number of convictions than control group members. These differences were statistically significant.
- At 18 months and 30 months after random assignment, treatment group members did not differ from control group members in other measures of convictions or in measures of reincarceration.
- At 30 months after random assignment, among the sample at relatively lower risk of recidivism, treatment group members had a higher average number of reconvictions than control group members. This difference was statistically significant.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
Because the study is a randomized controlled trial, the background characteristics of the treatment and control groups should be similar on average. But with the creation of subgroups based on risk of recidivism, the characteristics of the treatment and control group members within each subgroup might differ.
The study authors estimated multiple related impacts on outcomes related to recidivism. As the authors note, performing multiple statistical tests on related outcomes makes it more likely that some impacts will be found statistically significant purely by chance and not because they reflect program effectiveness. The authors did not perform statistical adjustments to account for the multiple tests, so the number of statistically significant findings in these domains is likely to be overstated.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that any estimated effects for the full sample would have been attributable to the SCA Adult Demonstration Program and not to other factors had the study found statistically significant effects. The quality of causal evidence of the analyses by risk-level is low because the authors did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects for the risk subgroups are attributable to the SCA Adult Demonstration Program; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Additional Sources
D’Amico, R., Geckeler, C., Henderson‐Frakes, J., Kogan, D., & Moazed, T. (2013). Evaluation of the Second Chance Act (SCA) adult demonstration 2009 grantees. Oakland, CA: Social Policy Research Associates. Retrieved from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service website: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/243294.pdf.
D’Amico, R., Geckeler, C., and Kim, H. (2017). Evaluation of Second Chance Act Adult Demonstration Programs: Impact findings at 18 months. Oakland, CA: Social Policy Research Associates.