0 - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

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Committee, as well as its Office of Chief Counsel. Temple researchers also received approval
fiom their Institutional review Board (IRB). Inmates were informed that their participation in the
research was voluntary, and they were asked to sign a Subject Consent Form (see Appendix 3).
Researchers retain the responsibility to maintain the security and confidentiality of all information
obtained fiom DOC inmates during all data collection and analyses. At no time was any inmate’s
identity associated with the reporting of any data collected for research purposes.
Dependent Variables
Measures can be broken down into institutional indicators, intermediate or “proximal“
outcomes, and post release indicators (see Table 1). Institutional indicators focus upon program
impacts that are internal to the prison environment. For example, the number of misconducts for
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inmates who participate in a given program can be compared to the number of misconducts
committed by inmates who have not participated in specific programs to partially gauge the impact
of the program upon inmate adjustment to the prison environment.
Intermediate or “proximal” outcomes refer to reductions in risk and criminogenic needs or
values. Measures of treatment process and individual change, implemented in collaboration with
DOC treatment staff and members of the Research Partnership Steering Committee, included a
combination of client surveys and questionnaires, counselor ratings, and prison records (see
below). Factors that may influence drug treatment outcomes include inmate demographics (age,
gender, ethnicity); life history (previous drug use, employment, and criminality), psychological
status (e.g., depression, anxiety, intelligence), prior drug treatment, current program fit (e.g., fit
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between treatment services and inmate needs), length of time in treatment, degree of engagement
in treatment, and perceptions of the usehlness of treatment (Inciardi et al., 1997).
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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not
been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.