Evaluation of the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Program at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility, 1997-1998

The goal for this study was to conduct a process evaluation
 of the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) program, called
 the Genesis program, at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility
 (SNMCD) by examining the program's structure and assessing its
 intermediate impact upon participating inmates. The study focuses on
 answering three research questions: (1) Who were the program
 participants? (2) What were the characteristics of the program? (3)
 Was the program reaching the most appropriate offenders, or were its
 participants primarily offenders who were not likely to become
 recidivists? The study contains information on every inmate who
 entered the Genesis program from July 31, 1997, to July 31, 1998. For
 evaluation purposes, the researchers designed their own data
 collection form which they used to collect relevant information from
 each participant's treatment program file. Each participant's file was
 maintained by Genesis program staff and was kept for the duration each
 inmate was in the program. From each program participant at intake,
 using the data collection instrument, the researchers collected
 demographic information, substance abuse history, and criminal
 history. The data are provided in two parts. Both parts are from the
 same data collection instrument. Part 1 covers Questions 1 through 15
 of the data collection instrument, while Part 2 covers Questions 16
 through 34 of the data collection instrument. Part 1 includes
 demographic variables about the inmate such as birth date, age,
 ethnicity, citizenship, years of education, prior employment status,
 longest employment, and average weekly income. It also includes
 incarceration information such as confinement date, length of current
 sentence, RSAT admission date, and expected parole date, and criminal
 history information such as age at first adult arrest, number of
 juvenile arrests, number of adult arrests, date of first adult arrest,
 date of last adult arrest, and number of years served in prison.
 There are also variables to address the inmate's drug use history as a
 juvenile and as an adult. Part 2 continues with the drug use history
 of the inmate as an adult with information about drugs used by IV
 injection, number of alcohol withdrawals, number of drug overdoses,
 number of detoxes, inpatient treatment received, outpatient treatment
 received, average amount of money spent on drugs, percentage of income
 spent on drugs, number of family members who use alcohol or drugs, and
 how they were related to the inmate. In addition, the file contains
 demographic information, such as current marital status and number of
 children, and the inmate's psychological history including depression,
 anxiety, anger, trouble understanding, concentrating, or remembering,
 attempted suicide, prescribed medication, and hospitalization.
 Criminal career variables include length of criminal career, all past
 charges, weapons used during any crime, number of times a weapon was
used, and total number of convictions.

Tags: addiction, correctional-facilities, drug-use, inmate-programs, outcome-evaluation, process-evaluation, recidivism, residential-programs, substance-abuse, substance-abuse-treatment, treatment-outcomes
Organization: Department of Justice