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Assessment of County Restrictive Intermediate Punishment Programming

NCJ Number
221290
Author(s)
Toni Dupont-Morales; Barbara Sims Ph.D.
Date Published
March 2001
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This report is an assessment of county-based treatment services provided to restrictive intermediate punishment (RIP) offenders.
Abstract
Results indicate that Philadelphia counties are assessing offenders with drug and/or alcohol dependency following the Philadelphia Client Placement Criteria (PCPC) guidelines for assessment, and that no eligible offenders are being denied an RIP sentence due to lack of a treatment slot. The current data file, developed to enable further data entry and evaluation of RIP client information, enables the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) to examine, by county, the number of clients placed in RIP programming, along with basic demographic backgrounds of those clients, clients' past history with drugs/alcohol, and initial level of care for those clients. The information reported provides the PCCD with some insights into how eligibility of RIP clients are determined: by number of clients; by county placed in RIP programming; initial level of care for RIP clients; success/failure rate of RIP clients; length of time in treatment for RIP clients; and, event histories of RIP clients. Problems with RIP include a concern that counties are not reporting information, or that they are reporting incomplete information. The protocol calls for individuals to keep an event history of RIP clients in the individual client files, and to only submit the outcome form once the client has been successfully or unsuccessfully released from RIP treatment. According to data from the outcome data file, and as of August 2000, RIP counties reported that 230 clients had successfully completed RIP programming (24 percent), and that 300 (32 percent) of the clients had been unsuccessfully released from RIP programming. Accordingly, and again relying on information reported to the research team, there were approximately 400 (43 percent) clients still under RIP treatment as of August, 2000. Tables, appendices