Public Protection - Minnesota Community Corrections Act Evaluation

• NCJ Number: 86166
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 80 pages
• Grant Number(s): 80-IJ-CX-0001
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation

Annotation

This report evaluates the Minnesota Community Corrections Act with respect to its ability to maintain or increase protection of public safety by keeping offenders in the community who are not a threat to society and by improving the rehabilitation of less serious offenders.

Abstract

Samples of adult offenders in each geographic area in which the law was implemented were studied using a pretest-posttest design. Juvenile arrest rates were also used to indicate the law's impact on public protection. During both the short and the long-term, the data on adult offenders indicated that public protection was maintained, although it was not improved. The relative size of a county's community-treated offender population tended to increase after entry into the community corrections programs, but this increase did not threaten public safety. The lack of adequate indicators and followups prevented the determination of the law's effect on the quality of rehabilitation. For juvenile offenders, the increase in arrest rates in counties participating in the law appeared to be somewhat greater than that found in other counties. The law had only a minor impact on the numbers of offenders shifted from prison to community treatment, since the geographic areas studied have traditionally treated the majority of their felons in the community. The finding that the law does not improve public protection does not imply that the majority of felons who have always been given community sanctions could be equally rehabilitated in prison. Data tables and four references are included.