Does Reentry Court Completion Affect Recidivism Three Years after Exit? Results from a Retrospective Cohort Study

ABSTRACT

Reentry courts are a strategy to assist individuals subjected to post-release supervision in the reintegration process, but there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of these practices. The current study presents the results of a retrospective cohort study for a sample of 340 participants who exited a reentry court. Specifically, survival analyses were employed to evaluate whether participants’ reentry court completion status affects their likelihood of and timing to recidivism events three years after exiting the program. The results revealed that successful program completion continues to shape recidivism outcomes up to three years after reentry court exit.

KEYWORDS:

• Reentry court
• recidivism
• program evaluation
• community supervision
• problem-solving courts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. CTP, enacted into law in 1999 by the Indiana state legislature, allows eligible state inmates to be transferred to a community corrections program or other program of supervision 60 to 180 days prior to their release date. Upon successfully completing the CTP program, participants are released to parole or probation (IDOC, 2018).