Which inmates participate in prison treatment programs?

Abstract

This study was undertaken to learn more about the allocation of treatment resources in a prison setting. Questions addressed were: How many inmates need particular types of treatment? What predicts participation in alcohol, drug, job training, and education programs? Are inmates with certain characteristics left out of programs? Are analysis relies on interview data collected on over 10,000 state prison inmates, then weighted so that the results represent all 191,000 inmates in state prisons at the time of the 1974 survey. The results show that overall 40% of inmates nationwide participate in some treatment program while incarcerated. The author classified each inmate as to his need for four types of treatment-alcohol rehabilitation, drug rehabilitation, job training, and education. An inmate's "need for treatment" was then compared to the actual treatment he received. It was discovered that 22% of the inmates needed alcohol rehabilitation, 23% needed drug rehabilitation, 31% needed job training, and 68% ...