Process Evaluation of the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Program at the Illinois Youth Center, St. Charles, 1999-2000

As part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement
Act of 1994, Congress provided funding for the development of
substance abuse treatment programs in state and local correctional
facilities with the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) for
State Prisoners Formula Grant Program. To be eligible for this
funding, programs were required to last between six and 12 months, be
provided in residential treatment facilities set apart from the
general correctional population, be directed at the inmate's substance
abuse problems, and be intended to develop the inmate's cognitive,
behavioral, social, vocational, and other skills to address substance
abuse and related problems. The Illinois Youth Center (IYC) in
St. Charles started an RSAT program on September 30, 1999. The primary
emphasis of this process evaluation was to describe why and how the
St. Charles RSAT program was designed, implemented, and operated. To a
lesser degree, attention was also directed toward examining the
effects of program participation on offender pre-release
behavior. This was considered to be a primary indicator of program
impact. This project sought to answer the following research
questions: (1) Did the program fit within the institutional
environment? (2) Was the program operating as a therapeutic community?
(3) Were the appropriate offenders selected for program participation?
and (4) Were any short-term impacts evident within the youth? This
study followed a process evaluation design with a focus on determining
how a product or outcome was produced, rather than on assessing the
product or outcome itself. Information in this data collection was
collected from youth participants and youth files. Subjects consisted
of the 44 youths who began the RSAT program in 1999 (the treatment
group), as well as a matched sample of non-program participants (the
comparison group). The comparison group was used to contrast
institutional behavior of youths not in the treatment program and to
establish a non-treatment cohort for an expected follow-up impact
study. Part 1 contains data from two surveys of program youth only,
and Parts 2-4 contained data on both program youth and the comparison
group. Part 2 data were gathered from a review of the youths' master
files at the correctional facility. Part 3 data were obtained from
behavior action tickets (BATs), which were an institution-wide
semi-formal mechanism to recognize positive and negative youth
behavior. Part 4 data were collected from institutional disciplinary
reports (IDRs). Part 1 surveyed youth about what they hoped to achieve
in the RSAT program, whether they thought the program would help them,
how well they understood the program, how they assessed their own
substance abuse problems, what they liked and disliked about the
program, their opinions about program staff, and their recommendations
for changing the program. Demographic variables in Part 2 include age,
race, and education level. Other variables record reading test scores,
math test scores, IQ scores, location of parents, number of siblings,
drug use and frequency, criminal history, types of prior substance
abuse treatments, family history of drug use, suicidal ideations, and
personality test scores. Part 3 contains monthly counts of positive
and negative behavior action tickets. Part 4 contains information
about the number and types of guilty institutional disciplinary
reports, the severity of the offenses, and the number and types of
punishments received.