Applying a Development Evaluation Approach to Address Community Safety and Health Challenges of Reintegration Programs in the USA

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in collaboration with the Pardee School at Boston University, the American Probation and Parole Association and the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) proposes to conduct a review of ongoing reintegration programs supported by federal agencies involved in the supervision of violent extremist offenders.

The goal of the project is to improve the design and implementation of reintegration programs through the use of a developmental evaluation approach to assess their effectiveness. Reintegration programs that have been developed (or are in development) and are designed for the reintegration of jihadi, white supremacist, and other groups will be evaluated. The applicants propose to use developmental evaluation – a relatively new form of evaluation designed to allow the embedding of formative analysis with evaluability assessments and outcome evaluation within the same evaluation study.

The goals of this study will be accomplished through four tasks: 1) Conduct a national level analysis of stakeholders and establish a stakeholders’ engagement strategy for the design and evaluation of reintegration programs; 2) Conduct a systematic review of existing reintegration programs (including gang and general-offender reintegration programs) to generate a list of essential services to allow researchers to identify resources and activities commonly employed in such programs; 3) Reach consensus on essential services of reintegration programs specific to terrorism-related cases; and 4) Conduct an evaluability assessment and a preliminary outcome evaluation of the newly designed reintegration program on the health and behaviors of a group of released prisoners. At the end of the project, the applicants will develop a manual for reintegration program developers and implementers. They will also disseminate their findings through peer-reviewed journal articles, conferences, and webinars.

"Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law," and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements - 2 CFR 200.210(a)(14). CA/NCF