Hi, Great topic, but unfortunately very understudied. There may be a bit more information for adult females than juveniles--which is your area of interest? Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joseph. Thanks for your interest!

This time we are studying programs for  adult population. 

Hi,

I don't really focus much on adults. I did a quick Google search and there seems to be some small scale studies and recommendations. I don't think that there is any type of large database, though. Cheers, Joe

Hi Juan Luis, I am not an specialist, but I think that it is a very interesting project. I know somone that researches and works on community offenders and fundamental rights in Spain. I do not know, but maybe he can help you if you are interested... 

I think there is a in-house program run in Federal Prison in Hawaii but I am not sure what kind of information/data is available.

This is a much needed area of focus

Thanks for your help. Joaquin. it will be great if you could help me get in touch with your colleague...

There is a program in Daytona Beach, Fl called Reality House.  It is run by Stewart Marchman Act http://www.smabehavioral.org/ and it houses inmates for transition and work-release.  I don't know the numbers but the recidivism is supposed to be low for the 'industry'.

Hi Juan,

My suggestion would be to first start by identifying "effective community reintegration programs" in general (i.e. for both male and female), then after looking into these programs narrow your focus to the female population and try to isolate the effects on male versus female. 

Additionally, a quick google search of reentry programs, reintegration programs, best practice post-release etc. will result in various findings. Please be flexible in your wording seeing as different scholars and researchers typically categorize the same things under varying titles (e.g. "aftercare" in the prison context). 

Moreover, based upon the other comments, if there is not a lot of research done on this, then it is worthwhile to first identify how you define "effective." For instance, is it based upon recidivism? Finding a job, home, etc.? Maintaining drug-free? After doing this, you can make a list of reintegration programs/practices that have been used by various organizations (such as the Reality House listed above by Anna Hackett) and then based upon their data and statistics, determine the effectiveness of such programs. 

Hi Juan,

Based on Andrea's response - I would actually go a little further and try to conceptualize what "effective" means with regards to what lens and what context and - when we were wanting to measure "effective" we should clearly articulate what it looks like and what it accounts for.

While we can argue that "effective" means a successful transition - or re-integration (and again these terms need to be clearly operationalized and defined against parameters) - we still are rout with concerns with regard to  recidivism in terms of how that is measured and articulated - as each jurisdiction and research methodology varies in how recidivism is defined and measured -

Perhaps rather than looking at effective programs in general - look at the program and see what parts of the program are useful and to what extent -

For crime is a complex aspect and in this vein recidivism is also a complex aspect - for a person can complete a program and commit a totally unrelated crime and end up back in prison - so using recidivism to measure effectiveness is again rout with problems - also remember those small % who actually are living crime-free - they are least interested in follow up and or trying to tell us what worked, when and to what extent.

Thus, when we are talking about effectiveness of a program - we must carefully match - what we mean by it and how we are going to measure it. For example, a program that facilitates accommodation and employment while incarcerated should not be used to measure recidivism or community reintegration - it should simply be measured against accommodation and employment (i.e., did he/she have a place to stay after release and did he/she get a job after release) - similarly  education programs  cannot be evaluated against recidivism - they should be measured against what the education program was about (i.e. pass or fail in the course/unit) - I am not sure why within the concept of crime/recidivism we try to  measure any and all program for effectiveness against these two -

Dear Jaun Luis,

In San José de Costa Rica (17 dec 2014) have been approved a series of documents about Social Reintegration in Latin America (women, and others group). If you can look if possible that you can find relevant information (documen abotu women and good practicas). This is the link: 

http://www.sia.eurosocial-ii.eu/actividad.php?id=1608

And....

In this page you can find programs, evaluaciones and documenta about mother in prison, women, etc.

http://www.institucionpenitenciaria.es/web/portal/documentos

Thanks to all of you, for your comments and advice.