Amity prison-based therapeutic community: 5-year outcomes

Few studies have examined outcomes of prison-based treatment programs over a 5-year observation period. The present analysis was based on a sample of 715 prisoners randomly assigned either to the Amity therapeutic community program or to a no-treatment group. At 5-years postrelease, 90% of the original participants were located and 81% were interviewed. The main findings were based on a conservative intent-to-treat approach. On measures of recidivism, the Amity treatment group had significantly lower rates of reincarceration than the control group, but in multivariate analysis of time to first reincarceration, this main treatment effect disappeared and other factors (age and postrelease treatment) became significant predictors of delayed time to reincarceration. As in previous reports on this cohort, those who attended aftercare had lower levels of reincarceration, longer time to reincarceration, and higher levels of employment.