N - 126

Booked

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variation in community performance by release type.

The three release categories, by number of offenders were the following: 1) parolees, 101: 2) conditional or "good-time", releasees, 205; and 3) expirees, or releasees at expiration of term, 126.

Performance in the community was described in terms of frequency of booking back into the D.C. Jail and in types of dispositions made after booking.

Findings

The parolees were the most successful of the three release categories. At the end of the 36-month follow-up, the parolees showed 29 percent booked, 12 percent sentenced for 30 or more days and 7 percent sentenced for 360 or more days. The corresponding values for the conditional releasees were 44 percent, 27 percent and 13 percent; and for the expirees, 57 percent, 39 percent, and 24 percent.

While some of the difference in performance might be attributed to personal and social differences between the releasee groups, some might be the result of differential handling before, during, or after release. The expirees, for example, who received no post-release supervision by the Parole Division, had failure rates ranging from two to three times those of the parolees.

Recommendations:

These findings indicate a pressing need for deeper and more elaborate studies of the relationship between inmate type and performance after release to the community. Such studies are basic to an understanding of the extent to which community performance of releasees can be improved by changes in institutional treatment, in Parole Board procedures or decisions, or in post-release supervision.

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Publication

Wanda S. Heaton and Stuart Adams, Community Performance of Three Categories of Institutional Releasees, pp. 25, June 1969

17) PERFORMANCE OF NARCOTIC-INVOLVED RELEASEES UNDER THREE KINDS OF COMMUNITY EXPERIENCE

Purpose and Method

To obtain preliminary information on the effects of three kinds of community experience on released narcotic offenders, three offender sub-groups with histories of narcotic involvement were followed up after release from prison.

The three groups were 1) 36 Department of Corrections' parolees who were referred to the D. C. Public Health Department's DATRC (Drug Addiction Treatment and Rehabilitation Center) program; 2) 57 Department of Corrections' parolees and conditional releasees; and 3) 49 Department of Corrections' mandatory releasees, sometimes called "expirees."

The three modes of experience were 1) the group-oriented program of DAT RC, with ex-addict counselor aides, directed by a psychiatric social worker. The program offered not only therapy but also referral to social services through an out-patient structure based on a converted residence in the inner city; 2) the supervisory and counseling services of parole officers in the Department of Corrections' Division of Parole; and 3) unsupervised release to the community.

The three subgroups were followed up through official records to ascertain their statuses month-by-month after entry into the two treatment programs or, in the case of the Expirees, following discharge into the free community. The focus of interest was the extent to which members of each group were arrested and booked

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into the D.C. Jail within a specified times after entry into the community.

Findings

At six months the DATRC subjects showed a 27.8% arrest and detention rate. The ParoleConditional releasee subjects showed a 28.0% rate, and the Expirees a 44.5% rate.

The three groups were compared on personalsocial characteristics to ascertain whether there were meaningful inter-group differences. The "best" configuration of four selected characteristics (age at first arrest, number of previous commitments, education claimed, and age at entry into the program) was shown by the DAT RC subjects; the worst configuration was shown by the Expirees.

When compared at three years out with the total group of D. C. Reformatory releasees from which they were drawn, the 106 narcotic-involved releasees showed an arrest and detention rate of 68%; the total group of 432 prison releasees showed a rate of 44%.

Two possible sources of bias appeared in the data on the relative performance of the DAT RC and the Parolee-Conditional releasee subjects. First, the Parolee-Conditional releasees went through their six-month follow-up period in 1965-66, while the DATRC subjects went through their follow-up in the more disordered years of 1968-69. Second, DATRC subjects were referred from the Parole Division to DAT RC, possibly after showing nonamenability to the usual parole treatment a circumstance that might imply existence of problem characteristics not accounted for in the personalsocial characteristics comparison described above. The first source of bias was judged to have no readily evident effect on the outcome. The second was too indeterminate to be evaluated in the present study.

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