Coastal State Prison Strategic Intervention Program Evaluation - Phase I

The State Justice Statistics (SJS) Program is designed to maintain and enhance each state's capacity to address criminal justice issues through collection and analysis of data. The SJS Program provides support to each state to coordinate and conduct statistical activities within the state, conduct research to estimate impacts of legislative and policy changes, and serve as a liaison in assisting BJS to gather data from respondent agencies within their states.
The Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council's (GJCC) Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) will use SJS funds to contract with faculty from the Georgia State University Department of Criminal Justice to collect data and develop a baseline offender profile for a three-year evaluation of the Coastal State Prison Strategic Intervention Program (SIP). SIP is a pilot program that incorporates into the maximum security prison framework the provision of expanded residential substance abuse treatment (RSAT) beds. The incorporation of expanded RSAT beds addresses the increase in percentage of offenders sentenced to prison with severe drug abuse problems. RSAT is designed to provide a continuum of care from assessment to treatment to post-release supervision for individuals with severe substance abuse problems sentenced to two years or less.
The study will examine program implementation and system changes, cost effectiveness, and changes in individual outcomes such as recidivism and revocation for SIP participants.
The evaluation will be funded under the FY2010 SJS grant, FY2009 Byrne JAG grant, and state DOC funds. SJS funds will be used to create the profile of all CAT II offenders (individuals sentenced to two years or less) in the judicial circuits that send offenders to the SIP. Specifically, the CAT II profile will identify: 1) which offenders are screened, referred, and enrolled in the SIP for both the 90 and 180-day programs; 2) how these offenders compare to non-referred and non-eligible CAT II offenders admitted to the system from the same judicial circuits during the same time period; and 3) what, if any, differences exist across judicial circuits at the offender and circuit levels.
The three year evaluation will track the cohort for at least one year following release. The long-term research objective is to identify determinants of in-program and post-program success, primarily reductions in recidivism, substance use, and improvements in quality of life. CA/NCF