Program evaluation methods and applications

CRIMINAL JUSTICE & THE PRISON SYSTEM: PROGRAM EVALUATION

This work in writing intends to examine the criminal justice and prison system in a brief program evaluation that identifies the external factors that impact the operation of a prison program geared toward the reduction of prison overcrowding and recidivism and specifically in terms of the ethics that may be involved in evaluation of the program.

Government's Role in Prisoner Re-Entry Program Should be Limited

The work of Mulhlhausen (2009) entitled: "Prisoner Reentry: A Limited Federal Government Role" in what is his testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crimes and Drugs of the United States Senate" reports that the national government should in addressing the issue of offender recidivism "limit itself to handling tasks that fall under its constitutional powers and the state and local governments cannot perform by themselves." Mulhlhausen states that the government should do two things:

(1) Operate 'evidence-based' programs; and (2) Not assume responsibility for funding the routine operations of state and local reentry programs. (2009)

The opinion of Mulhlhausen is that while the tendency exists to search for solutions at the national level, this is "misguided and problematic..." (2009) because although offender recidivism is a problem "common to all states...the crimes committed by offenders in the state corrections systems are almost entirely and inherently local in nature and regulated by state criminal law, law enforcement and courts." (Mulhlhausen, 2009)

Offender reentry begins in the prison as inmates begin to prepare for release and is ongoing in various communities with characteristics that are individual to that specific community in terms of its public policies and other factors that serve to influence the transition of the individuals from prison and into the community. Mulhlhausen (2009) reports that additional factors that influence the individual's transition from prison to community are those of:

(1) Individual characteristics;

(2) Family and peer relationships; and (3) Community circumstances. (Mulhlhausen, 2009)

II. Rigorous and Scientific Evaluation of Programs for Re-Entry

The work of Wolk and Hartmann (1996) reports that outcome evaluations for the purpose of determining the effectiveness of prison programs are essential. Since the primary reason that re-entry programs exist is the prevention of recidivism a requirement also exists for impact evaluations that are scientifically rigorous and for two reasons:

(1) The curtailing of ineffective programs; and (2) The adoption of effective programs. (Mulhlhausen, 2009)

III. Determination of the Impact of Social Programs

The determination of the impact of social programs is stated to require a comparison of the conditions of those receiving assistance to the conditions of "an equivalent group that did not receive the intervention. There are three basic types of research designs including: (1) experimental designs; (2) quasi-experimental designs; and (3) non-experimental designs. (Shadish, Cook and Campbell, 2002) the 'gold standard' is stated to be represented by "...experimental evaluations that make use of the random assignment of individuals to interventions and control groups..." (Mulhlhausen, 2009)

Mulhlhausen (2009) reports that randomized evaluations are of the nature that serve to "ensure that pre-progam differences between the intervention and control groups do not confound or obscure the true impact of the programs being evaluated." In addition, random assignment is stated to enable the evaluator in testing "for differences between the experimental and control groups that are due to the intervention and not to pre-intervention discrepancies between the groups. By drawing members of the interaction and comparison groups from the same source of eligible participants, these experimental evaluations are superior to other evaluations using weaker designs." (Mulhlhausen, 2009)