Project overview

As part of the HSData project for the past five months, Root Cause has been working to identify the appropriate common indicators across services for adults involved in the criminal justice system and to develop a draft taxonomy of these indicators. Defining common indicators for Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) is the first step towards developing a complete taxonomy encompassing all service areas in the adults involved in the criminal justice system subsector.

To date, the research process has involved subsector literature review, one survey, approximately 15 interviews with service providers and researchers in the field, and two working groups.

The goal of the first working group, with providers, agencies, funders, and research institutions was to get feedback on an early draft of the taxonomy. The early draft of the taxonomy contained a total of 47 indicators and attempted to cover a wider-range of service areas in the subsector, including ATI, reentry, family services, and community service. Based on the feedback received during the first working group, Root Cause narrowed down the scope of the project to one service area – ATI.

On August 25, Root Cause convened a second working group with New York City providers of ATI services. The goal of this working group was to identify and define performance indicators that more meaningfully measure performance in ATI programs. Participating providers were presented with a list of 10 indicators that were identified based on the previous research. These indicators were used as a basis for the discussion. We defined the following seven indicators and their corresponding rate calculations:

•  Number of individuals interviewed

•   Number of individuals eligible for ATI

•   Number of individuals enrolled in ATI

•   Number of successful completions

•   Number of unsuccessful completions

•   Number of successful ATI sentences

•   Recidivism