The efficacy of high impact incarceration: A correctional treatment outcome study

Abstract

The objective of this research was to determine the treatment outcome for a group of adult male city-sentenced inmates and parole violators in a High Impact Incarceration Program (HIIP) “boot camp”. The research design was a quasi-experimental, one-group, pretest/posttest design without a control group (APA, 1982). The setting for the study was the new York City Department of Correction High Impact Incarceration Program (HIIP) on Rikers Island. The participants consisted of thirty-three (33) adult male city-sentenced inmates and parole violators who volunteered to participate in the rigorous boot camp program. The High Impact Incarceration Program (HIIP) was the experimental/independent variable for this study as well as the treatment intervention that was utilized in this research. The outcome measure was the Carlson Psychological Survey (CPS). The research question for this study was: What, if any, change(s) in personality disorder and its comorbid factors (dependent variable) take place in the inmate/subject after a period of high impact incarceration? The intervention (HIIP) lowers the pre to post level means of four (4) of the five (5) variables. Two of the four decreases are significant: Chemical Abuse (CA) and Self-Depreciation (SD), with the latter being highly significant (ANOVA P-Value of 0.0000). The largest of the four decreases is 27%. The fifth variable—Validity—(V) is unaffected by the intervention with pre and post means of 3.394 and 3.409, respectively. The variable Antisocial Tendencies (AT) comes near to significance with a confidence of .0677. Though Disturbance (TD) proved unaffected by the intervention. HIIP appears to be significantly effective in changing certain personality factors and their comorbid factors while the teammates (inmates) are within this intensive, rigorous, and highly structured program. Further research is necessary to determine what effect this personality change has on the rate of recidivism.