Abstract
“Offender Drug Abuse and Recidivism” concentrates on a very current issue of criminal justice system in the United States, which is incarceration explosion of nonviolent drug using criminals, resulting from moral panic to toughen legislation. Seredycz focuses on the offenders who participated in the Lake City Access to Recovery (ATR) program, announced by President George W. Bush in 2004 as new substance abuse treatment initiative. As Seredycz mentioned in his book, ATR program “provide people seeking drug and alcohol treatment with vouchers to pay for a range of appropriate community based services” (p. 11). This is a 3-year period program that is founded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which identifies alcohol and other drug abuse (AODA) treatment as the main concern of the grant. The purpose of the study is to explore the effectiveness of the Lake City ATR program and whether the program reduced offender recidivism or not.
The book is organized in five chapters with a useful bibliography and an index. Each of the five chapters has an introduction paragraph which provides an overview. The book starts with the introductory chapter “The Politics of Offender Reentry,” which sets a brief analysis on correctional problems associated with the war on drugs in the United States. Chapter 2 “Examining the Process of Reentry” might be considered as a review of the past researches particularly focuses on statistics about the recidivism, drug-crime nexus, and necessity of the ATR programs in the United States. Also included in this chapter, Seredycz provides possible answers for how a system-based approach has improved the process of offender reintegration that he defines as an inevitable process of each offender.
After these introductory chapters, Chapter 3 illustrates the research design, hypotheses, research questions that are engendered from the previous studies, and Lake City as a site of the study. Seredycz, in this chapter, examines the research models that are categorized as Research Models I and II. The research Model I explored the effectiveness of the Lake City ATR program by using two dependent variables. In this model, the first dependent variable is each participant’s success in their completion of their client chosen treatment program. The second dependent variable in the research Model I determines whether each participant desist from alcoholism and/or drugs. The research model II measures whether Lake City’s ATR program is effective in reducing offender recidivism during the offender’s treatment program or not. In this study, recidivism is measured by five variables that are “one or more documented incidences of technical probation or parole violations, a warrant for noncompliance of an offender’s term of probation/parole, arrest for a charge of a new crime, conviction of a new crime and incarceration of an offender,” at least one of them must fulfilled by the offender (p. 14).
Fourth chapter of the book presents a detailed analysis based on case file reviews of 434 offenders who participated in Lake City’s ATR Program between the period of May 2005 and June 2006. Chapter 4 consists of two main sections, the first one expounds on the profile of Lake City participants and the second section explains the effectiveness of Lake City ATR program from assessment and referral for AODA to the ancillary services that offenders may have received. According to the first section, the general profile of a Lake City ATR participant is a younger male between 22 and 28, single, non-Hispanic, and Black. The second section is the analysis of offender’s success within the Lake City ATR program by using two variables: the offender’s abstaining from AODA and whether offenders participating in the ATR met their program goals. When the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) was administered, most of the offenders have needed assistance for employment, drugs, and legal. Also, ASAM Patient Placement Criteria was used, and almost all offenders reported some broad levels of service assistance. Testing the effectiveness of ATR program, the results stress the integrative systems approach that focus on the each offender’s areas of need or risk while completing some form of AODA program, behavioral, cognitive program, reduce the recidivism of offenders in the ATR Program.
In the final chapter, Seredycz outlines 10 conclusions that evaluate the Lake City ATR program and suggests potential recommendation for the future studies on offender reintegration. Evidently, case managers, an offender’s informal support system, the ASI, an offender’s increased duration in AODA programming, were effective predictors in reducing offender’s likelihood of recidivism. On the other hand, Lake City ATR program has similar recidivism rates as the national recidivism. Seredycz states with certainty that “recidivism rates are occurring within the first five to six months after being released” (p. 142).
An important point to mention is that the book is a dissertation that is submitted to University of Nebraska, Omaha. Due to this fact, the book chapters do not maintain features that make it eligible for general readership. Seredycz offers an empirical base supporting that the need of renewed and effective programming which assists reintegration of offenders into their communities. In contrast, Seredycz does not really provide a discussion of how to reduce recidivism among offenders in ATR program; however, he points out the significant factors in reducing an offender’s likelihood of recidivism.
Finally, two basic limitations of the book should be spelled out. First, the scope of the study is not international; the scope is completely restricted to Lake City participants. Second, the study cannot provide a review of theoretical framework on offender reintegration into the community. Nonetheless, this book offers a broad review of the literature on the incarceration binge in the United States with particular focus on recidivism and drug-crime nexus. Thus, the book should be required reading for anyone who works on recidivism and criminal justice system in the United States.