A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of judicial supervision on recidivism and well-being factors of criminal offenders

Abstract

This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated whether problem-solving court interventions that employed judicial supervision were more effective in reducing recidivism and improving well-being outcomes for offenders compared with conventional justice processes. More than 11,000 records were collected via a three-phase search strategy that identified 56 independent investigations that included 11,146 treatment and 12,091 comparison subjects. A total of 68 outcomes were assessed for risk of bias, with the majority (59.67%) rated ‘critical’ overall. A subset of recidivism outcomes (k = 22) that were included in a synthesis of relative incident rate ratios revealed a significant reduction in rearrests from pre-treatment to post-treatment among problem-solving court interventions as compared with treatment-as-usual processes. However, there was a high degree of unexplained heterogeneity observed among studies. An analysis of moderators revealed that mental health courts possessed larger treatment effects than both drug courts and driving while intoxicated courts, court programs that reported individualized treatment had greater effects than those that did not, and stronger treatment effects were found among programs that required frequent judicial supervision in the initial phases of treatment. More rigorous investigations, with detailed descriptions of treatment programs, are needed to better explain the sources of variance between and within court formats.