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2 DEFINING POST-RELEASE SERVICES

The term post-release does not refer to a single concept. This chapter explores the language and the concepts employed in discussions of prisoner return and post-release issues and services.

Terminology Surrounding Prisoner Return

The way in which terms have been employed in the discussion of prisoner re-entry has varied. Figure 1 plots how these terms interrelate.

Re-entry: a single moment in time when a prisoner is released from custody. It can also be a process by which prisoners move from custody to independent community living. The re-entry process can be formal and mandatory, such as is the case with parole supervision, although at present, not all Australian prisoners are subject to formal re-entry programs.

Transition: the process of re-entry. Transitional services are those that aim to assist in this process, and these can be any formalised supports provided just before, at the point of, or following release. They can specifically refer to transitional/pre-release centres, which are supervised residential settings that bridge the gap between community and custody, allowing inmates substantial interactions with the outside world (eg outside employment or family contact).

Aftercare: is less formal support following formal service delivery, such as ongoing contact following structured drug treatment. Because interventions can be delivered to prisoners at any point in a custodial term, aftercare need not always occur in the community. However, if informal community support follows in-prison treatment programs, this support could be classified as aftercare.

Post-release: refers to the time following custody. Post-release interventions aim to minimise re-offending during this time, by managing risk and promoting rehabilitation. Some interventions delivered before release into the community can be considered post-release because they aim to ensure post-release adjustment. Aftercare, post-release and transition can refer to similar processes, and to some extent will be used interchangeably for any treatments, programs or services aiming to assist in the transformation from prisoner to law-abiding community member.

Continuity of care: describes the philosophical commitment to providing consistent services and supports to prisoners within and beyond prison, with this holistic program of rehabilitation ideally commencing at first contact between the offender and the justice system.

Throughcare: describes the process of delivering continuous care.

Reintegration/Resettlement: describes the desired aims of throughcare - independent and productive community membership - as well as the processes required to achieve this aim (HM Inspectorate of Prisons 2001). The appropriateness of these terms has been debated, because some argue that the majority of prisoners have never been integrated or settled in the mainstream community and so logically cannot return to these states (see Ward 2001). The terms nonetheless capture the idea of offenders actively participating in their re-entry process rather than just passively receiving services, and so will be used in this review. Another term has appeared relatively recently - reintegrative confinement. This was developed with respect to throughcare for juvenile offenders. It refers to a correctional philosophy in which the custodial experience is oriented towards successful re-entry, with formal surveillance and support in the community to achieve this end (see Altschuler and Armstrong 1999).

Figure 1: The relationship between terms related to prisoner release

Important Concepts in the Design of Post-Release Services

Justice systems are acknowledging that treatments and services to assist in reintegration can contribute to public safety and offender rehabilitation. If reintegrative support and surveillance mechanisms are to be implemented, justice systems must also precisely specify the nature of the interventions they intend to provide.

Defining Post-Release

Post-release implies the period immediately following community return, but many of the challenges confronting prisoners necessitate long-term interventions. In this sense, the period required to reintegrate may last substantially longer than the period of any formal, post-custodial community supervision. Post-release preparation is best commenced before community return, therefore the period may also incorporate some segment at the close of a custodial term. The period that will be classified 'post-release' reflects assumptions about the time needed to effectively reintegrate. For example, if post-release is defined as the period of parole supervision, it implies that reintegration takes precisely as long as this bureaucratic process (Lynch and Sabol 2001).

It is critical that authorities clarify the time frame that they intend to treat as post-release, which could variously mean:

• the period of immediate community return, such as the first few days
• a specified period following return, such as one-month
• the term of mandated community supervision, and so varying with offender
• a specific period following community supervision
• some variable date, such as the time when independent and productive community membership is demonstrated, or
• any of the above in combination with some closing portion of the custodial term.

Defining the Client

A related issue involves specifying who any services are intended to assist - clarifying what prisoners should access post-release interventions. Given the resource limitations confronting most jurisdictions, it is likely that services will need to be restricted, but as with above, there are multiple ways of defining clients. For instance, services could be directed towards:

• all prisoners, including those held on remand
• all sentenced prisoners
• only prisoners released with community supervision
• only prisoners assessed as presenting high or medium level risk, or
• only prisoners convicted of certain offences, such as sex offenders.

Other aspects of the client base that require clarification include whether offenders voluntarily partake of services, or whether they are mandatory. If the latter, authorities must consider how they will deal with non-compliance. The blend of surveillance and support to be employed must also be specified. Although there is no strong evidence indicating that post-release surveillance alone will produce strong positive effects on recidivism (eg MacKenzie 2000), effective community protection requires some offender surveillance. Post-release services must therefore establish the optimal blend of support and supervision to achieve desired outcomes.

At a more detailed level, the purpose of the services to be supplied to clients must be considered. In the UK, the aftercare services delivered by community correctional officers have shifted in focus from welfare, to programs chiefly addressing criminogenic needs.7 This has meant that voluntary aftercare clients (whose chief concern has historically been welfare-related issues) now tend to approach non-government service providers rather than the government probation service (Maguire, Raynor, Vanstone and Kynch 1998).

Finally, authorities must be alert to the way public attitudes may influence the type of client who receives services, and the way in which these attitudes can have paradoxical outcomes. For instance, excluding one group of prisoners from programs, (eg high risk or violent offenders) because the public perceives them to be receiving undeserved advantages does not stop those same offenders from eventually returning to the community (see Taxman, Byrne, Holsinger, and Anspach 2003). Exclusion on the basis of moral deservedness rather than relevant need also ignores the fact that those most at risk stand to gain the most from appropriate rehabilitative interventions (see Principles of Effective Correctional Programming in Chapter 3).

Defining Rehabilitation

If offender rehabilitation is a desired outcome of corrections, the general process by which this will be achieved should be stated. Cullen and Gendreau (2000) speak of three components that identify rehabilitation (as opposed to some type of other intervention):

1. it is planned (ie not chance)
2. it targets something about the offender believed to be linked to offending, and
3. it is intended to stop future offending via mechanisms other than simply deterrence.

In addition, there are three levels at which the implementation of rehabilitative programming should be considered (see Roberts 1995):

1. examining the range and type of services expected and to be provided, to highlight any gaps in provision
2. devising a framework for the order of practice implementation, and for the processes necessary to deliver, monitor and evaluate that practice, and
3. developing a framework for addressing the availability, knowledge, and competency of staff to deliver programming.

Some have argued that it may be more appropriate to speak of preparation for release rather than rehabilitation, because it is simply unlikely that the latter will be achieved (HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 1986). However, as will be discussed, the success of rehabilitation is intrinsically linked to what yardsticks are employed to index success.

Defining the Desired Outcome of Interventions

Authorities must decide how they choose to define the success of post-release interventions. Any coherent policy driving the implementation of throughcare or post-release services should also dictate the type of outcomes that will be used in the evaluative process. Ward (2001) identified three types of outcome measures that have been used to index the efficacy of post-release services:

1. ease of the transition process
2. reduced recidivism, and
3. decreased prison population.

The second and third measures reflect a utilitarian approach to offender management, whereas the first suggests a humanitarian agenda. Other measures that have been used also have a more rehabilitative orientation, such as the ability to transfer acquired positive skills to new community settings, or the seriousness of relapse (see Serin and Kennedy 1997).

By far the most commonly employed outcome measure is recidivism, which can be defined in a variety of ways, including:

• re-offending (either with or without8 law enforcement detection)
• rearrest
• reconviction
• reimprisonment, and
• time-to-failure (re-offence, rearrest, etc).

Researchers have noted that the various recidivism measures can themselves reflect differing correctional goals. For instance, rearrest is useful if behaviour change is the desired outcome of interventions, whereas reimprisonment is the most useful measure if assessing effects of programs on prison numbers (Brewster and Sharp 2002). The timeframe for ex-prisoner follow-up can also inform as to beliefs about how long the process of successful resettlement should, in theory, take.

Additionally, using recidivism as an outcome is unlikely to lead to an underestimation of the real risks posed by offenders. Some outcome measures, such as program completion, may lead correctional staff to view all completing offenders as successful offenders. However, without measuring the degree with which the program actually reduces re-offending, statements about changes in offender risk are difficult to make (see Glover and Bumby 2001). It is important to remember that at the most basic level, the utility of correctional rehabilitation is derived from its ability to change patterns of offending (Howells and Day 1999).

There is debate, however, as to the appropriateness of recidivism as a measure of rehabilitative success. Some argue that recidivism is not optimal in the evaluation of how effective the process of implementing an intervention has been - it can do little to illustrate specific program failings or merits, and measures such as employment, reduced drug use, or decreased assessed risk may be more appropriate (Boone and Fulton 1996). Similarly, justice administrators rarely expect to achieve zero recidivism, therefore it may be appropriate to consider employing measures that more effectively bridge the gap between community expectations and the justice system's capacity to actually control crime (Turner and Petersilia 1996). Lastly, employing recidivism measures alone can lead to a failure to address non-criminogenic disadvantages in offenders' lives that impede reintegration (such as domestic violence, see Ogilvie 2001), and other factors that have traditionally been thought to bring about 'correction', such as education.

Clarifying Post-Release Service Delivery

Factors that are dictated by forces external to corrections (such as budget allocation, or sentence lengths) can have a profound effect on correctional operations (see Lynch and Sabol 2001). This reality, coupled with the variety of challenges faced by returning prisoners, means that the task of whole of person reintegration is quite probably beyond the scope of correctional authorities alone. The stakeholders in prisoner re-entry were outlined in the introductory chapter, and the precise role of these stakeholders in the actual process of service delivery must be considered and codified.

Lastly, there are two important decisions that must be taken by correctional authorities when instigating any custodial component of throughcare or post-release services (see Nelson and Trone 2001):

1. Are services to be standardised across the jurisdiction? One compelling reason for standardisation would be the continuation of services to prisoners transferred between facilities.
2. Will services be delivered from a dedicated facility within the custodial environment? This can allow a separate transitional culture to be developed within institutional settings.

Choices will be dictated in part by the specific programs to be delivered, by the resources available for services, and by the type of offender that services are designed to address.

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7 Those offender attitudes, personality aspects and/or behaviours that are linked directly to offending (see Chapter 3).

8 Where the latter would be measured by offenders' own reports of their criminal activity.