[WITHDRAWN] Consideration of Self Determination in Reentry Among Justice Involved

Background and Purpose: Roughly, 600,000 formerly incarcerated persons (FIPs) are released every year from prison system (Petrich, et al., 2022). After release they are faced with many challenges like unemployment, lack of adequate housing, physical, mental, and behavioral health needs (Begun et al., 2016; Couloute & Kopf, 2018; Nally et al., 2014) which puts them at increased risk for recidivism and reincarceration. For successful reintegration of FIPs, the Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) model is commonly utilized (Bonta & Andrews, 2007), in which intervention is recommended based on assessed risks and needs. Socioecological factors such as concentrated disadvantage are also predictors of reintegration of FIPs into communities (Hipp et al., 2010). One gap in these reentry approaches is client self-determination to identify their own needs (Bottoms & McWilliams, 1979) When FIPs’ reentry plans include self-identified needs, they are more likely to utilize services post-release and to successfully reintegrate into communities (Johnson, 2013).

The purpose of this research is to understand soon-to-be FIPs’ intent to use mental health services, drug treatment, alcohol treatment, and anger management after their release, and whether the intent to receive services is predicted by need for services, demographic variables, crime and incarceration, environmental variables, barriers to receive services, and intent to receive help for these barriers.

Methods: Data was collected from 173 soon-to-be-released adults incarcerated in prisons or community-based correctional facilities. The survey included questions about demographics, environmental variables, priorities, barriers, criminal and incarceration history, and drug, alcohol, mental health, and anger management treatment received while incarcerated, and post-release intentions to utilize these services. Logistic regressions were run to predict intent to receive drug treatment, alcohol treatment, mental health treatment, and anger management post-release. Initial models were run with all variables, and we removed variables in stages until we reached a parsimonious model (Menard, 2002; Zhang, 2016a, 2016b), using AIC and BIC fit indices.

Results: The mean age of participants was 33.89 years, roughly 83% of them were male, 66.5% of them were white and 26% of them were incarcerated for violent crimes. Drug, alcohol, mental health, and anger management treatments were received by 61%, 51%, 42%, and 40% of the participants respectively while incarcerated. Participants intended to utilize services for drugs (52%), alcohol (44%), mental health (37%) and anger management (27%) post-release. Being female and utilization of services while incarcerated predicted intent to utilize drug and mental health services post-release; crime type and type of facility was predictive of intent to utilize anger management services post release; participants facility (CBCF or prison) and interaction of housing and concentrated disadvantage was predictive of intent to utilize alcohol treatment services.

Conclusions and Implications: The most common predictor for intent to receive services was utilization of services while incarcerated. Concentrated disadvantage only predicted intent to receive alcohol treatment for participants who would live with family/friend’s post-release, implying a potential protective effect. Coordinating post-release services to FIPs’ needs and building community capacity to meet specific identified needs is more likely to engage FIPs and to improve re-entry outcomes.