Treatment or Program Outcome Evaluations

Large sums of public money are spent on offender rehabilitation programs every year. However, many offender rehabilitation programs are not effective in reducing reoffending. Strong conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness and quality of a correctional treatment program when a rigorous evaluation is conducted. A sound evaluation is one that is likely to be replicable (i.e., someone else should be able to conduct the same evaluation of the program and obtain the same results). Since policy makers and criminal justice administrators are being held accountable for the outcomes of these correctional treatment programs and the money invested in them, these officials rely on evaluations to help them make more informed decisions about the continued funding of these programs. This entry focuses on how evaluations ...