“Where are they Now?” Follow up of the MTC Gradual Release Program

• In Event: Critical Issues in the Evaluation of Reentry Programs

Abstract

The Massachusetts Treatment Center was established in 1959 under special legislation to assess and treat sexually dangerous men. Between 1976 and 1991, approximately 100 men were selected to participate in the Gradual Release Program—a transitional program that provided certain inmates with supervised and unsupervised leaves of absence in order to better prepare them for their release to the community. This project is part of a large scale follow up study funded by the Guggenheim Foundation. We followed each GRP participant quantitatively (using official records) and subsequently located, contacted, and interviewed a subsample of 30 men—11 who have since reoffended and are back in custody and 19 who were released in the early 1990s and are living offense-free lives in the community. The present study describes the personal and offense characteristics of the GRP participants and employs qualitative content analysis to explore and explain their life narratives of redemption and recidivism.

Authors

• Jennifer Lynn Rodriguez, San Jose State University

• Danielle Arlanda Harris, San Jose State University