Evaluation of Prince George's County, Maryland Day Reporting Program

Abstract

Prefaced by an ever-increasing prison population, departments of correction are turning toward alternatives to incarceration for many non-violent, low-risk offenders. The need for alternatives to incarceration has spurred the development of community based programs to house these offenders. Electronic monitoring, intensive probation, shock incarceration and community service are some of the community based programs currently available. The late 1980s introduced a further community based treatment program, day reporting. Based on a British model, day reporting is an extension of intensive supervised probation that incorporates counselling, rehabilitative and treatment services with intensive supervision. Since the inception of day reporting centers in Massachusetts, 22 states in the U.S. have developed and implemented 114 day reporting centers. While the content of each program differs, the underlying concept of public safety through intensive supervision and offender rehabilitation remains constant across all programs. In January, 1994, the Prince George's County, Maryland Department of Corrections, Community corrections Division, together with the State of Maryland, Division of Probation and Parole opened a day reporting program to facilitate community reintegration of low-risk, non-violent offenders. This report provides a descriptive analysis of the program's first year of operation. The results indicate that while the Prince George's County Day Reporting Program implemented many of the initially proposed features, further effort must be made to ensure that all participants receive the necessary treatment and rehabilitative services.