How long after? a natural experiment assessing the impact of the length of aftercare service delivery on recidivism

Abstract

Although aftercare programs have been gaining popularity as a mechanism for helping offenders readjust to society, evaluations of their success remain varied. This is most likely due to the diversity of programs labeled as aftercare and the inability of research to isolate specific program components. The current study capitalizes on a natural experiment to examine the impact of one particular component, length of service delivery, on recidivism. The study employs survival analysis techniques on a population of inmates graduating from a motivational boot camp who either received no aftercare, 30 days of aftercare, or 90 days of aftercare (depending on the existing policy on their graduation date). Findings show that those receiving 30 days of aftercare services are indistinguishable from those receiving no aftercare services in terms of recidivism. Also, we find that although those receiving 90 days of aftercare did recidivate substantially less than those receiving 0 or 30 days of aftercare, after accounting for sample attrition, however, these findings also lacked statistical significance. © The Author(s) 2011.