Facilitating Community Re-entry: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Cognitive Life Skills Program for Parolees

• In Event: Prisoner Reentry Programs: Components and Processes

Abstract

In 2010, Pennsylvania’s Board of Probation & Parole (PBPP) began administering the National Curriculum and Training Institute’s Cognitive Life Skills (CLS) program to its supervised offender population. This presentation reports about program effectiveness, as determined by incidents of recidivism between offenders completing CLS with a matched group of offenders not receiving it. Recidivism was measured here as committing new crimes or violating technical conditions of parole. These findings represent the first rigorous, empirical evaluation for program effectiveness.

Records were obtained for 87,577 offenders who were released to parole supervision between January 2010 and May 2015. Offenders were grouped using propensity score matching techniques. Overall, findings revealed that males and offenders with a criminal history were more likely to recidivate. Also, specific findings uncovered a 24 percent reduction in recidivism (full sample) and a 31 percent reduction (high-risk offenders only), while holding other covariates constant. Daily recidivism was always higher among offenders who did not receive the program compared to those who successful completed it. Policy implications will be discussed, including direction for PBPP related to future programming which facilitates offender reenter into the community.

Authors

• Michael E Antonio, West Chester University

• Andrew Crossett, West Chester University