Reentry Research and Evaluation Goals

Research about the effectiveness of reentry efforts generally needs to determine—

• How public policies and laws can mediate the effects of static risk factors (unalterable events of the past, such as family disruption in childhood or alcohol and other drug use in adolescence) and dynamic risk factors (current criminogenic needs that may be amenable to change, such as antisocial attitudes and poor problem-solving skills).
• Which technologies are most useful in aiding reentry efforts and how to encourage their use.
• How reentry programming affects unsupervised, released offenders.
• How criminal justice agencies and community organizations can best collaborate to monitor offenders and assist them in executing a tailored reentry plan.
• Whether prison or jail programming has eroded because of the focus on community reintegration.

Because most evaluations of programs are still in progress, NIJ cannot say with certainty what works in the field of reentry. Reentry programs are based on research from related fields such as drug treatment, employment training, and community corrections. Such research is a precursor to evaluation of reentry efforts. Over time, evaluations of prisoner reentry programs will sort out the relative importance of individual services.

One ongoing evaluation funded by NIJ is looking at the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI). Learn about this multisite evaluation .