Day Reporting Center and Recidivism: Comparing Offender Groups in a Western Pennsylvania County Study

Abstract

In this study the authors report on an investigation comparing the recidivism and other variables of two similar offender populations in a western Pennsylvania county. The two groups were comparable in offense type, size (N ¼ 63 for each) and other variables such as sex, race and age range. One group represented offenders who received a sentence that included incarceration, whereas the treatment group offenders were sentenced to some form of day reporting and other intermediate punishment measures. In addition, the authors investigated recidivism within 36 months of the sentence, with recidivism qualified as probationary violations as well as rearrests. Results indicate that day reporting sentencing not only saved the county incarceration costs, but also yielded a lower recidivism rate to a statistically significant degree. Additional research is needed to further clarify and test the efficacy of day reporting as an intermediate sentencing option.Day reporting centers (DRCs) represent a sentencing strategy aimed at supplementing probation with a targeted range of treatment options and avoid the costs and crowding problems of incarceration for nonviolent (but often repetitive) offenders. Like other intermediate punishment initiatives such as house arrest and intensive supervision, the DRC model is

An Evaluation of Day Reporting Centers for Parolees

“…Overall, the results of the current analyses directly contrast the findings of prior quasi‐experimental studies in which DRC participants had fewer rearrests in the follow‐up time period than their comparison group counterparts (i.e., Champion et al, ; Martin et al, ). Specifically, medium‐ and high‐risk parolees assigned to a DRC do not fare any better (and occasionally fare worse) than a comparable group of parolees that is placed on traditional parole supervision.…”

“…Such results are similar to those found in a national survey of DRCs, in which the mean positive termination rate of DRC clients was 50% (Parent, Byrne, Tsarfaty, Valade, and Esselman, ). However, documented completion rates for DRC participation have varied broadly within the available literature, as some researchers have reported program completion rates of less than 40% (Brunet, ; Marciniak, ), whereas others have reported program completion rates of 60% or higher (Champion et al, ; Diggs and Pieper, ; McDevitt and Miliano, ; Roy and Grimes, ). For the current study specifically, the lack of difference in completion rates between DRC participants and Phase I parolees indicates that offenders subject to DRC programming are equally likely to “fail” when compared with parolees on regular parole supervision.…”

“…While DRCs can provide community-based services and programming to multiple offender populations, research on the ability of these programs to reduce recidivism and increase positive outcomes for offenders has focused mainly on the outcomes of adult probationers (Brunet, 2002;Champion, Harvey, and Schanz, 2011;Craddock, 2004Craddock, , 2009Craddock and Graham, 2002;Marciniak, 2000) and offenders during the pretrial phase (Kim, Joo, and McCarty, 2008;Kim, Spohn, and Foxall, 2007;Martin et al, 2003;McBride and Vanderwaal, 1997;Roy and Grimes, 2002). These studies generally suggest cost-savings to states through the use of DRCs instead of standard incarceration (e.g., Craddock, 2004), but results regarding the effectiveness of these facilities to reduce recidivism in these populations are mixed, and none of these studies employed an experimental design.…”

Using Day Reporting Centers to Divert Parolees from Revocation

“…found that parolees who were referred to DRCs did no better than those who were referred to continued community supervision without DRCs according to several outcomes, and in some instances, they did significantly worse than the non‐DRC group. These findings are notable not only because they represent (to date) results from the most methodologically rigorous assessment of DRCs’ impacts, but also they starkly contrast previous studies that have found DRCs to be associated with favorable outcomes when used as alternatives to revocation and reincarceration (see Champion, Harvey, and Schanz, ; Martin, Lurigio, and Olson, ). The major policy takeaways offered by Boyle et al.…”

“…Boyle et al found that parolees who were referred to DRCs did no better than those who were referred to continued community supervision without DRCs according to several outcomes, and in some instances, they did significantly worse than the non-DRC group. These findings are notable not only because they represent (to date) results from the most methodologically rigorous assessment of DRCs' impacts, but also they starkly contrast previous studies that have found DRCs to be associated with favorable outcomes when used as alternatives to revocation and reincarceration (see Champion, Harvey, and Schanz, 2011;Martin, Lurigio, and Olson, 2003). The major policy takeaways offered by Boyle et al are that DRCs may contribute to increases in returns to incarceration while costing more money to operate than traditional parole supervision, and thus, they do not advise using DRCs as alternatives to incarceration for medium-and high-risk parolees.I respectfully disagree with the policy directions that Boyle et al (2013) propose.…”