The Priority Prolific Offender Program: Preliminary Findings from the Second Year of the Process and Outcomes Evaluation

Date
2015-01-02
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family.
Abstract

The Priority Prolific Offender Program (PPOP) joins a growing number of programs in Canada designed to collaboratively address the behaviour of prolific offenders using a combination of monitoring, enforcement, and rehabilitative services. The objectives of Alberta’s program aim to ensure Crown prosecutors have complete, accurate, and up-to-date information on prolific offenders, promote rehabilitation through the provision of appropriate support services, and ensure the consequences of offending and reoffending are meaningful. PPOP contracted the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family in 2012 to begin the first year of a three-year process and outcome evaluation involving multiple methodologies. The report from the first year of the process and outcome evaluation (MacRae-Krisa & Paetsch, 2013) used program data on offenders who had been de-selected from the program, a survey of PPOP staff and a survey of PPOP stakeholders to re-examine program processes and, in particular, to provide a profile of the offenders in the program as a foundation for examining outcomes in the proposed second and third years of the evaluation. Following an internal review of the program in 2013, PPOP contracted the Institute to conduct the second year of the evaluation and it was determined that a comparison of clients at the program sites in Calgary, Edmonton and the RCMP locations would be desirable. The current report focuses on updating the profile of individuals in the retrospective sample who had been PPOP clients and were subsequently de-selected, and conducting comparisons across program sites. An additional 22 clients who were de-selected from the program since the last report have been added to this sample. Further, this report examined these clients’ re-offending behaviour during their time in the program and after leaving it using data obtained from the Justice On-line Information Network (JOIN) to determine the longer-term efficacy of PPOP in reducing offending behaviour. The purpose of the current report is to discuss the findings of the second year of the evaluation. The objectives of the report are to: (1) report findings from the retrospective data collection; (2) report preliminary findings from the longitudinal data collection; (3) examine any differences in offender characteristics and program procedures across program locations; ix (4) develop a strategy for a cost/benefit analysis of PPOP; and (5) make recommendations for the program as it moves forward.

Description
Keywords
family law, law
Citation
Paetsch, J.J., Bertrand, L.D., MacRae-Krisa, L.D. & Boyd, J.-P. E. (2013). The Priority Prolific Offender Program: Preliminary Findings from the Second Year of the Process and Outcomes Evaluation (rep.). Calgary, AB: Canadian Research Institutue for Law and the Family