An Analysis of New Jersey's Day Reporting Center and Halfway Back Programs: Embracing the Rehabilitative Ideal Through Evidence Based Practices

Abstract

Over the past several years practitioners in the field of Criminal Justice have begun to reaffirm, recognize, and implement the tenets of the rehabilitative ideal within their daily operations. However, despite scholarly research showing that offender rehabilitation can have marked positive affects upon recidivism, many practitioners remain deleteriously entrenched within the “get tough” paradigm. One area of the criminal justice system where the rehabilitative ideal is particularly salient is the field of community corrections, notably parole. The New Jersey State Parole Board (NJSPB) has recently revamped and largely modernized the methods by which it conducts its day-to-day operations in order to reflect tenets which have been empirically shown to “work,” largely identified as best, or evidence based practices. As a result the NJSPB is currently conducting system-wide evaluations of its operations, including those of its service providers. Two of the major services provided to the NJSPB include Day Reporting Center and Halfway Back programs. These programs largely embrace best practices through assisting recalcitrant parolees in job placement, family, vocational and educational training, anger management, and substance abuse mediation. The current study employs a quasi-experimental design and serves as an inquiry into the relationship between recidivism and membership in these programs, parole with no programs, and maxing-out of prison with no supervision. Recidivism is analyzed according to three criteria: rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration. Multivariate results were garnered through logistic regression modeling and largely show that membership in NJSPB community programs have significant positive affects upon recidivism when compared to not being supervised, most notably when considering the failure criteria of rearrest.