The IAP Model

One model or conceptual yardstick against which transition and aftercare programs can be measured is the IAP model, developed with OJJDP funding by Drs. Altschuler and Armstrong (1994a, 1994b). Its usefulness as a guide for examining program design and implementation rests in its identification of specific program elements, components of the elements, and services that address what are commonly regarded as essential aspects of reintegrative corrections programming (see figure 1). One of IAP's components, the requirement that both surveillance and treatment services be provided, has been found relevant to success in both intensive supervision programs (ISP's) for probationers (Petersilia and Turner, 1993; Byrne and Pattavina, 1992) and boot camps (MacKenzie and Souryal, 1994). Many researchers believe that the success is related to active, direct intervention in the home community and social network within which the offending originated. This is also where various problems and needs related to family, school, employment, peer group, and drugs surface. However, when the response is predominantly, or exclusively, a matter of offender surveillance and social control (e.g., drug and alcohol testing, electronic monitoring, frequent curfew checks, strict revocation policies) and the treatment and service-related components are lacking or inadequate, the indication is that neither a reduction in recidivism nor an improvement in social, cognitive, and behavioral functioning is likely to occur.

Figure1

Attention is thereby drawn to the extent and nature of both the surveillance and service components as reflected in the implementation and day-to-day operation of the aftercare program. Regarding services in particular, the question is whether institution-based treatment focusing specifically on "criminogenic" (i.e., predictive of future criminal activities) needs (see Andrews and Bonta, 1994) is compatible and consistent with treatment in the community. Specialized treatment in the institution is likely of little long-lasting value if it is not relevant to pressing concerns in the daily lives of offenders in the community and not carefully and consistently reinforced in this setting. The lack of such services in either the institution or the community is equally detrimental, because the former offers the potential for establishing a powerful foundation on which to build and the latter offers the potential for transferring newly learned skills and competencies to the very community in which the offender will reside (see, for example, Altschuler, 1984; Altschuler and Armstrong, 1995b; Whittaker, 1979).

Strategies to develop a service structure that spans institution and community involve several major challenges. Allocating sufficient numbers of qualified staff and funds to support service provision at the level required in both the institution and community is critically important and challenging. Cost sharing, leveraging funds, in-kind contributions, contracting, public-private partnerships, and reallocating portions of existing budgets are some of the approaches that are being used. Developing the organizational capacity and wherewithal to facilitate the consistency and compatibility of service delivery between the institution and community is another critical challenge. Strategies designed to foster such compatibility include bringing into the institution specialized service providers and agency staff based in the community, providing joint staff training, establishing interagency case management teams, adopting and tailoring for institutional use those practices and approaches that closely resemble promising treatment and service modalities found in the community programs, and conversely, applying promising techniques initially developed for institutional use (such as anger management or aggression replacement) to community-based programs. In short, the intent is to have community-based aftercare services parallel those that are first initiated in the institution and institutional services geared to achieve essentially the same purposes as those that will be achieved in the community. The key service areas around which both the institution and community-based providers need to organize their respective efforts in tandem are family, peers, schooling, work, and drug involvement (i.e., drug use and drug selling). Program developments in these areas need to be encouraged by funding support, reflected in organizational policies and procedures, and promoted through carefully designated staff roles and responsibilities, training, and career advancement.

Regarding supervision and control in the community, a critical question relates to how various practices can work in concert with the required services. Drug and alcohol testing, attendance and curfew checks, electronic monitoring, and tracking are all valuable supervision practices that can be used to encourage participation in required services and adherence to rules and conditions. In fact, close supervision and tracking that increase the probability of detecting noncompliance with, and nonparticipation in, required services may well discourage lack of cooperation, especially when coupled with graduated responses. The key is having a strategy to heighten surveillance in a way that promotes participation in treatment. Such a strategy is essential because research suggests that recidivism declines only when offenders are simultaneously receiving both supervision and treatment-related services.3 Again, adequate resources and organizational ability are clearly necessary to promote the implementation of programs that truly incorporate sufficient levels of supervision and services.

Research findings repeatedly have shown that providing high levels of supervision to lower risk offenders results in poorer performance, not better.4 One reason frequently cited to explain this pattern is that intensive supervision tends to be accompanied by an increase in detected technical violations that, by definition in many studies, is one measure of program failure. Moreover, when increases in technical violations become the basis for more revocations and reincarcerations, intensive supervision actually becomes a contributor to institutional crowding. Another problem is related to the lack of evidence indicating that technical violations, per se, are predictive of future criminality (see, for example, Petersilia and Turner, 1991; Turner and Petersilia, 1992). This raises two fundamental questions. First, what is accomplished from the perspective of crime prevention and control by reincarcerating technical violators? Second, what is accomplished by imposing intensive supervision on offenders who are already at low risk for reoffending? Another reason why lower risk offenders tend to perform poorly when subjected to intensive supervision is the tendency of some individuals, particularly adolescents, to react negatively to the pressures created by highly intrusive supervision. Given the negative reactions, it appears that intrusive supervision techniques are counterproductive to the intended goal of supervision. Insight into the dynamics between level of supervision and offender performance has prompted numerous observers to suggest that the level of community supervision provided be commensurate with the actual level of risk posed by the offender in the community.5


3 See, for example, Byrne and Pattavina, 1992; Gendreau, 1996; Petersilia and Turner, 1993.

4 See, for example, Andrews, 1987; Baird, 1983; Erwin and Bennett, 1987; Markley and Eisenberg, 1986.

5 See, for example, Andrews, 1987; Baird, 1983; Erwin and Bennett, 1987; Markley and Eisenberg, 1986.

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Reintegration, Supervised Release, and Intensive Aftercare Juvenile Justice Bulletin   ·  July 1999