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Abstract
Day reporting centers (DRCs) are a community-based correctional option that provide punishment and control while simultaneously assisting with rehabilitation and reintegration. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of DRCs on the criminal recidivism of adult offenders. The current study meta-analyzed nine studies contributing 21 effect sizes (12 of which were independent). The findings show that, overall, DRCs do not differ from traditional supervision options in terms of recidivism outcomes. Additional analyses suggest that the magnitude of the treatment impact varies depending on the type of recidivism outcome measured, with studies limited to conviction showing a positive and significant reduction for DRCs. Further, front end DRCs were related to stronger treatment impact than back end DRCs. Inconsistent reporting of important variables concerning program characteristics and participant characteristics limited our ability to make recommendations for best practices.
Notes
Notes
1 As these violations were detected, administrators felt pressure to react to them with additional sanctions (usually revocation or incarceration) to “maintain the program’s credibility in the eyes of judges, the media, and the community” (Tonry & Lynch, Citation1996, p. 101). Rather than committing new crimes, those offenders were found to be reincarcerated for failing to follow their community sanction conditions (Wodahl, Ogle, & Heck, Citation2011). As such, these violations became one of the main sources of prison admission (Parent, Citation1995; Wodahl et al., Citation2011).
2 These gray literature sources included Google and Google Scholar, websites of relevant organizations (e.g., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice), the reference lists of relevant articles identified through the initial searches, and the curricula vitae of prominent researchers in the field (e.g., James Byrne, Michael Tonry, Douglas Boyle).
3 While numerous independent programs might operate similarly to a DRC, because of the considerable variability amongst these various program (i.e., overall purposes, goals and objectives, staff, operational procedures, practices, and programing), we limited our focus to programs that specifically identify as a DRC. This served two primary purposes: (a) help to ensure that the included programs are as conceptually similar as possible, and (b) because little is known about the effectiveness of DRCs, a narrower scope allowed us to look into this particular program in detail and investigate program components that may contribute to evidence-based practices without being convoluted by other program structures and formats.
4 That is, studies must have had a comparison group with participants who were—at least partially—matched to the treatment group, or control variables must have been used to account for potential between-group differences. To ensure there were minimal between-group differences and to minimize the threat of selection bias (e.g., from “no shows” or noncompleters), an appropriately matched comparison group was a critical design requirement.
5 As these two types of populations differ substantially from the general adult offender population, they were excluded to maximize commensurability and generalizability across studies.
6 Due to inconsistent reporting across studies and substantial missing data, we were unable to code all 78 variables across all studies.
7 Groups were partially matched on some important variables such as age, gender, etc., but did not implement rigorous matching techniques such as propensity score matching.
8 Note that many of the arrest effect sizes were also included in the full sample set (42%), so these do not represent independent sets of effect sizes). Given the small numbers, the seven studies examining the outcome of conviction and the five studies examining incarceration were not dissected using moderator analyses.
9 In other words, characteristics of the studies with respect to study publication year, publication type, research design, sample size, and stage of program implementation were all important factors in predicting the magnitude of the DRC treatment effect on both overall recidivism (independent effect sizes), and for the set of studies looking only at arrest outcomes (the full analysis for the fixed effect model is not shown here, but is available upon request). There were two exceptions (out of the 30 analyses) to this: publication year of 2003+ for the conviction outcome and sample size of 100+ for the conviction outcome.
10 The full analysis of publication bias is not shown here; however, results and funnel plot are available upon request.
11 While the findings also suggest that DRCs are not effective at reducing incarceration, it is highly possible that the small number of studies (N = 5) included in the subanalysis was not large enough to detect statistical differences between the treatment and control groups. Future studies on the effectiveness of DRCs should measure their impact on incarceration so that we can draw more definitive conclusions about the effects of DRCs on this category of outcome.
12 Although the moderator analyses were able to account for some heterogeneity in the models, inconsistent reporting of DRC program components and participant characteristics (which are typically influential variables that account for variability) did not allow us to examine their moderating effect on intervention effectiveness. For example, although we coded for important variables such as length of program, intensity of supervision, frequency and types of treatment, as well as age, gender, and race of participants, limited reporting across studies did not allow us to include these variables as moderators. As a result, we were unable to determine which specific program components or participant characteristics were related to more (or less) successful outcomes.