Executive Summary: Secure Substance Abuse Treatment Programs

Secure Substance Abuse Treatment Programs are full service, long-term residential treatment programs providing a therapeutic community (TC) setting. This program type consists of an intensive treatment component lasting up to twelve (12) months, in which the offenders live and remain at the facility twenty-four (24) hours per day, followed by a six (6) month employment/re-entry component. This program type is appropriate for offenders who have had unsuccessful treatment outcomes in less restrictive settings and need long term rehabilitation in a controlled environment. Program success rates, as seen below, have nearly doubled since FY 1994-95, from 15.9 percent to 31.5 percent for the first half of FY 1999-2000.

Profiles of Secure Residential Program Facilities

Workload

• Secure programs began with only 188 new enrollments in the start-up year, and increased substantially in the next three (3) years. Enrollments have remained relatively constant since 1994-95. This year's enrollments total 776.
• For FY 1999-2000, 1,241 different offenders participated in a Secure program.
• On any given day, as seen in the June 30th offender counts for each year, there are now about 567 offenders in the programs.
• Since 1991, the programs have served 7,965 different offenders.

Table 2B: FY 1999-00 Secure Treatment Program Enrollment Data by Facility

• The programs vary substantially in size. While First Step enrolled only nine (9) offenders on June 30, 2000, Phoenix House had more than 200 offenders.

Outcomes

• This table shows outcomes based on a three (3)-year follow-up after the offender first entered a program of this type. If they participated in more than one (1) program, they are counted as successful if they completed at least one (1) program.
• On average, Secure programs had a 38.5% success rate (successful exits divided by successful and unsuccessful exits) for the most recent follow-up period.
• Success rates have dropped over the 6-year period, from 44.9% to 38.5%.
• The proportion of offenders whose final program outcome is an administrative exit has decreased over the history of the programs from 23.0% to 9.7%.

Table 2D: FY 1999-00 Secure Treatment Exit Data (Event-Based) by Facility

• Looking at the outcome of the offender's experience in each program from which they exited, the success rate varies from 62.5% for the federal Spectrum program to 24.7% for Bradenton DTC. Bradenton DTC has a younger offender population than other facilities.
• On average, these programs had a 38.9% success rate with offenders exiting their program during this fiscal year. Administrative exits averaged 15.4% for the year. As seen in the prior table, many of these administrative exits lead to subsequent enrollments in other programs.

Recommitments

• At two (2) years after program exit, recommitment rates for Secure program completers (18.6%) are substantially lower than for program non-completers.
• This pattern holds true for each type of recommitment - supervision vs. prison, and new offense vs. technical violations of supervision conditions.
• Completers and non-completers are only a bit lower in total recommitments to community supervision (for either a new offense or technical violation)
• Prison recommitments for program completers are less than half that for non-completers (10.5% vs. 42.9%).

Table 2F: FY 1996-97 (3-Year Follow-up), Secure Treatment Recommitment Data by Level of Participation

• For a three (3)-year follow-up period, Secure program completers remain lower than non-completers in overall recommitments (32.9% vs. 64.5%), and this pattern is true for all recommitment types - prison, supervision, new offense, and technical.
• The greatest differences are for recommitment to prison based on technical violations (10.1% vs. 30.1%).

Table 2G: FY 1995-96 (4-Year Follow-up), Secure Treatment Recommitment Data by Level of Participation

• While the overall recommitment rate increases, program completers remain significantly lower than non-completers in all categories.
• About 44.1% of completers were recommitted, compared to 72.4% for non-completers.

Table 2H: FY 1994-95 (5-Year Follow-up), Secure Treatment Recommitment Data by Level of Participation

• For this cohort, at five (5) years after program completion, recommitments average 46.7% for program completers and 76.2% for non-completers.
• Completers are slightly higher (22.0%) than non-completers (18.2%) in returns to supervision, but remain lower for prison commitments (24.8% vs. 58.0%).

Table 2I: FY 1993-94 (6-Year Follow-up), Secure Treatment Recommitment Data by Level of Participation

• Program completers remain slightly more likely to serve another period of supervision, but are substantially lower in admissions to prison.
• Note that the number of offenders who can be followed for a six (6)-year period is limited, since the programs were not as large in the early years.