Return on Investment: Evidence-Based Options to Improve Statewide Outcomes - July 2011 Update -

The 2009 Washington Legislature directed the Institute to “calculate the return on investment to taxpayers from evidence-based prevention and intervention programs and policies.” The Legislature instructed the Institute to produce “a comprehensive list of programs and policies that improve . . . outcomes for children and adults in Washington and result in more cost-efficient use of public resources.” The Legislature authorized the Institute to receive outside funding for this project; the MacArthur Foundation supported 80 percent of the work and the Legislature funded the other 20 percent. This main report summarizes our findings. Readers can download the two detailed technical appendices for in depth results and statistical methods.

Fight Crime and Save Money: Development of an Investment Tool for States to Study Sentencing and Corrections Public Policy Options —Progress Report—

Can knowledge about “what works” to reduce crime be used to help a state achieve a win-win outcome of: (1) lower crime, and (2) lower taxpayer spending? This progress report describes the work underway by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) to develop an analytical tool for Washington, and perhaps other states, to identify evidence-based policy options to reduce crime rates and lower the taxpayer costs of the criminal justice system.

The Pew Charitable Trusts contracted with WSIPP to: (1) develop the tool, (2) apply it to the policy process currently underway in Washington State, and (3) help Pew make the tool available to other states.

This progress report describes the structure of the tool being constructed. The current plan calls for initial estimates by August 2010. In addition, the tool will be used to support the work of the legislatively directed study being conducted by the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission.

Evidence-Based Programs to Prevent Children from Entering and Remaining in the Child Welfare System: Interim Report

The 2007 Washington State Legislature directed the Washington State Institute for Public Policy to study evidence-based, cost-effective programs and policies to reduce the likelihood of children entering and remaining in the child welfare system, including both prevention and intervention programs.
The “bottom line” goal of the study is to provide the legislature with reliable estimates of the costs and benefits of prevention and intervention programs that are designed to reduce involvement in the child welfare system.

Providing Evidence-Based Programs With Fidelity in Washington State Juvenile Courts: Cost Analysis

The Washington State Legislature has been funding evidence-based programs in the Washington State juvenile courts since 1999. In 2009, the Legislature directed the Institute to “conduct an analysis of the costs per participant of evidence-based programs by the juvenile courts.” This report provides estimated costs per participant for these evidence-based programs:

• Aggression Replacement Training (ART)
• Coordination of Services (COS)
• Functional Family Therapy (FFT)
• Family Integrated Transitions (FIT)
• Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST)

The statewide average costs can be used to estimate the number of youth who can be served by these programs for a given amount of funding.

The Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative: A Study of Decision-Making and Recidivism

This study identified demographic, offense, and criminal justice system factors that contribute to the decision to grant Washington State's Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative (SSOSA) to certain eligible sex offenders and not to others who are eligible. Comparative rates of recidivism (rearrest and reconviction) for those who did and did not receive this sentence option were also analyzed.

Washington's Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) & Recovery Navigator Program (RNP): Opportunities to Improve Pre-Booking Diversion Fidelity

Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) was originally developed in Seattle to divert people away from the criminal legal system before they were booked into jail. In 2019, state funding was provided to expand LEAD into four pilot communities. In 2021, additional funding was provided through the Recovery Navigator Program (RNP) to expand pre-booking diversion statewide. Both LEAD and RNP seek to connect people with housing and mental and substance use disorder treatment to address underlying issues that drive frequent interactions with law enforcement. This report describes the state of LEAD and RNP implementation, barriers to achieving higher fidelity to core principles of pre-arrest diversion, the use of technical support from the LEAD National Support Bureau (LSB), and a benefit-cost analysis.

To address these topics, we conducted 60 interviews with 91 people involved in the diversion process, reviewed administrative data collected by the LSB, and conducted a systematic literature review, meta-analysis, and benefit-cost analysis. Results suggested that LEAD and RNP programs face considerable challenges in implementing pre-booking diversion. Major barriers include limited buy-in from criminal legal system professionals, insufficient capacity and funding, and lack of necessary resources such as housing and substance use disorder treatment. Clarifying the relationship between LEAD core principles and RNP uniform standards, facilitating technical assistance, and implementing improved data-sharing technologies would help to improve program fidelity and clarify uncertainty among diversion system actors. The benefit-cost analysis suggested that for every $1 invested in these programs, $7.39 in benefits was returned.

Evidence-Based Programs to Prevent Children from Entering and Remaining in the Child Welfare System: Benefits and Costs for Washington

The 2007 Washington Legislature directed the Institute to estimate whether “evidence-based” programs and policies can “reduce the likelihood of children entering and remaining in the child welfare system, including both prevention and intervention programs.” In this report, we study three basic questions: Is there evidence that specific programs “work” to improve these outcomes? If so, do benefits outweigh program costs? Finally, what would be the total net gain to Washington if these evidence-based programs were implemented more widely?

To answer these questions, we systematically reviewed the “what works” literature regarding programs and policies that affect child welfare outcomes. We then estimated the monetary value of the benefits, including factors such as reduced child welfare system expenditures, reduced costs to the victims of child maltreatment, improved educational and labor market performance, and reduced crime-related costs.

Six-Year Follow-Up of Released Sex Offenders Recommended for Commitment Under Washington's Sexually Violent Predator Law, Where No Petition Was Filed

Washington was the first state to pass a civil commitment law for violent sex offenders; the law was part of the state's 1990 Community Protection Act. The Sexually Violent Predator statute permits the indefinite involuntary civil commitment of persons found in civil court to be sexually violent predators. This study examines the recidivism of 89 sex offenders released between July 1990 and July 1996 who were referred by the Department of Corrections as meeting the filing standards for civil commitment petitions, but for whom no petitions were filed. The study reveals that this group of individuals have a high pattern of recidivism.

Post-Release Controls for Sex Offenders in the U.S. and UK

Published as:

Lieb, R., Kemshall, H., & Thomas, T. (2011). Post-release controls for sex offenders in the U.S. and UK. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 34, 226-232. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2011.04.006

In recent years, both the United States and United Kingdom have developed numerous innovations in legal efforts to protect society from sex offenders. Each country has adopted special provisions for sex offenders. In particular, governments have focused on forms of social control after release from incarceration and probation. These policy innovations for this category of offenders have been more far reaching than those for any other offender population. The two jurisdictions have adopted policies with similar goals, but the selected strategies have important differences. Generally speaking, the U.S. has favored an ever-expanding set of policies that place sex offenders into broad categories, with few opportunities that distinguish the appropriate responses for individual offenders. The UK government observed the proliferation of Megan’s Laws in the U.S., and deliberately chose to establish carefully controlled releases of information, primarily relying on governmental agencies to work in multi-disciplinary groups and make case-specific decisions about individual offenders. Although the UK policy leaders expressed significant concern that the public’s response to knowing about identified sex offenders living in the community would result in vigilantism, to date the results have not born out this fear. Both governments have turned to other crime control measures such as polygraphy testing, electronic monitoring, and civil protection orders as a means to prevent further sexual violence.

The Community Juvenile Accountability Act: Research-Proven Interventions for the Juvenile Courts

The 1997 Washington State Legislature significantly altered this state’s juvenile offender sentencing laws and intervention policies (E2SHB 3900). One portion of the legislation established the Community Juvenile Accountability Act (CJAA). The Act changed the way some local court programs are funded—only programs shown to reduce recidivism cost-effectively are funded under the CJAA. In the Act, the Institute was charged with measuring whether the CJAA programs cost-effectively reduce recidivism in Washington State.