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The cross-site evaluation of the Adult Offender Reentry Demonstration Projects (AORDP) was a seven-site study designed to 1) describe the implementation and sustainability of each AORDP project through a process evaluation, 2) determine the per capita program costs of each AORDP project through a cost study, and 3) determine the effectiveness of the programs through a multicomponent outcome study. The seven evaluation sites were located in California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The objectives of the outcome evaluation were to determine the effects of program participation on recidivism and other outcomes and assess whether program participation increased engagement in services, including substance abuse treatment and mental health services. The outcome evaluation consisted of two components:

1. Cross-site prospective study designed to collect longitudinal survey data with a sample of program participants and appropriate comparison or control subjects to assess the impact of the SCA funding on access to services and reentry outcomes, such as substance use, employment, housing, and health.

2. Site-specific recidivism analyses using administrative data to assess the impact of AORDP program participation on recidivism outcomes for all individuals enrolled in the AORDP programs and a matched comparison group in each site

The current study focused on 479 men and women from South Carolina who were enrolled as participants in the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) multi-site program evaluation shortly before prison release in 2004 or 2005. The original SVORI data suggested that the South Carolina respondents were similar to the multi-site sample with "committed to not going back to prison" as the most common reason for desisting and using drugs or alcohol as the most common reason for persisting. The goals of the current study were to (1) update information on the current status of these individuals across multiple domains (e.g., housing, employment, substance use); (2) gather additional administrative recidivism data to examine long-term offending; and (3) acquire information about the factors individuals associated with their decisions to desist from criminal activity, as well as circumstances associated with renewed criminal activity or desistence. Interviews were conducted with those that the study team were able to locate and additional administrative arrest and incarceration data were acquired for the full sample, providing recidivism follow-up over at least a 10-year period.

Official administrative data were obtained from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (rearrests) and South Carolina Department of Corrections (reincarcerations). Arrest data span the entire arrest history (from first arrest through December 2015); reincarceration data span the period between the SVORI study prison release in 2005 and 2006 through June 2014. These data were obtained for the full sample of 479 South Carolina SVORI participants.

Three components of interview data were collected.

• Desistance study interview data: 1 wave of in-person interviews was conducted with 208 study subjects who consented to participate in an interview. The research team used computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) to administer the survey, and interviews were conducted from September 2016 through March 2017.
• Life event data: The Life Events Calendar (LEC) is a tool used in qualitative and quantitative research to gather retrospective information about a person's life, experiences, and history. The approach is based on autobiographical memory and how entering events on a calendar or page help facilitate memory recall. LECs typically encompass periods of 5 years or less; this study's LEC covered a 10- to 12-year span to allow analysis since last contact with the study cohort. Data were collected from the 208 subjects who consented to be interviewed.
• SVORI interview data: This inventory includes files with select baseline and outcome data (e.g., self-reported employment, drug use, criminal behavior) for desistance study subjects who responded to follow-up interviews at Wave 2 (3-month), Wave 3 (9-month), and Wave 4 (15-month).

This collection of administrative and interview data is organized into 14 data parts. Demographic data includes information on age, gender, race, and education.

The evaluation of the Honest Opportunity Probation with Enforcement Demonstration Field Experiment (HOPE DFE) was a four-site, randomized controlled trial replicating a Hawaii probation program widely touted as successful in reducing drug use, violations, and reincarceration. HOPE is based on "swift, certain, and fair" principles, beginning with a warning hearing from a judge and requiring strict adherence to supervision requirements, including random drug testing, with all violations followed by hearings and jail sanctions. Treatment is for those who repeatedly fail random tests. Grants and technical assistance were provided to the sites (Saline County, Arkansas; Essex County, Massachusetts; Clackamas County, Oregon; Tarrant County, Texas) by the Bureau of Justice Assistance to facilitate implementation. The evaluation documented implementation and fidelity, tested outcomes (primarily recidivism), and estimated costs.

1,504 individuals who met eligibility criteria for HOPE were randomly assigned to HOPE or to probation as usual (PAU) between August 2012 and September 2014. Phases of the study included a process evaluation with fidelity analysis, outcomes evaluation, and cost evaluation. Data collection activities included site visits, documentation review, stakeholder interviews, procuring administrative records, conducting interviews for probationers at three different timepoints (baseline, 6 months, 12 months), drug testing oral swabs, and a weekly telephone-based interview with a subset of probationers to assess attitudinal changes.

The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) funded agencies to develop programs to improve criminal justice, employment, education, health, and housing outcomes for released prisoners. SVORI was a goal-oriented initiative that specified outcomes that should be achieved by programs that were developed locally. The original Multi-site Evaluation of SVORI funded under NIJ grant 2004-RE-CX-0002 included a quasi-experimental impact evaluation to determine the effectiveness of programming. Specifically, the purpose of the impact evaluation was to determine whether individuals who participated in enhanced reentry programming, as measured by their enrollment in SVORI programs, had improved post-release outcomes than comparable individuals who did not participate in SVORI programming. Impact evaluation data collection for both SVORI and non-SVORI participants consisted of four waves of in-person, computer-assisted interviews and oral swab drug tests conducted in conjunction with two of the follow-up interviews. The research team collected data on a total of 2,391 individuals including 1,697 adult males (Part 1), 357 adult females (Part 2), and 337 juvenile males (Part 3). As part of the impact evaluation, experienced RTI field interviewers conducted pre-release interviews with offenders approximately 30 days before release from prison and a series of follow-up interviews at 3, 9, and 15 months post-release. These data provided information on criminal history and recidivism occurring by December 31, 2007. The Adult Males Data (Part 1), Adult Females Data (Part 2), and the Juvenile Males Data (Part 3) each contain the same 5,566 variables from the 3 waves of offender interviews, 10 drug test lab results variables, and 3 weight variables. (Note: Some interview questions were only asked of adults, and other questions were only asked of juveniles.) Offender interview variables include demographics, housing, employment, education, military experience, family background, peer relationships, program operations and services, physical and mental health, substance abuse, crime and delinquency, and attitudes toward those topics.

Under NIJ Grant 2009-IJ-CX-0010, the original Multi-site Evaluation of SVORI data were updated in order to examine the questions of, "What works, for whom, and for how long?" This included follow-up interview questions of those previously (and currently still) incarcerated. New variables derived from data collected under the original SVORI impact evaluation between 2004 and 2007 were also added to Part 3. Part one included an additional 100 variables, part two an additional 102 variables and part 3 an additional 99 variables.