Program Goals/Target Population
Common risk factors that individuals face following release from prison that could increase their risk of recidivism include stress, substance abuse cravings, and avoidance-oriented coping strategies (Phillips and Lindsay, 2011). The Daily Automated Telephony With a Brief Cognitive Intervention was a program in Sweden that used automatic telephone calls to monitor and intervene on the daily development of recently paroled individuals’ dynamic risk factors associated with recidivism. The program aimed to ease the process of reentry for those on parole through a brief cognitive intervention that involved feedback based on participants’ responses to certain questions they were asked during the telephone call. The goal was to reduce negative behavior and risk factors for recidivism, such as alcohol and drug use. This program was targeted at individuals who were recently paroled, as research suggests the immediate reentry period is important for both short- and long-term success (Vasiljevic et al., 2017).
Program Components
The first part of the program was a daily automated assessment (by a telephone call) of the recently paroled individual. A central computer was programmed to perform two attempts to reach a participant by phone each hour from noon to 9 p.m. every day, until the phone call was answered. Assessments were designed to be brief and asked the participant to rate themself on different measures of stress, alcohol and drug use, and mental health using their telephone keypad.
Following this assessment, the next part of the program was the brief cognitive intervention. The intervention included four steps: 1) calculation of the current result; 2) feedback on the current result; 3) confirmation of the current result; and 4) recommendation. For Step 1, feedback and recommendation were automatically provided to participants based on their responses to the assessments. This feedback calculated how the assessment compared with previous assessments the participant completed. For Step 2, the participant was informed whether the change was positive, negative, or neutral. For Step 3, the automated system asked the participant if they felt “better,” “about the same,” or “worse,” compared with the previous assessments. For Step 4, if the participant answered positively or neutral, the result was confirmed, and the feedback ended. If the participant answered negatively, the feedback provided recommendations to the participant to talk to someone trusted, such as the participant’s parole officer.
The calls to participants were brief, usually lasting under 60 seconds. The call would end with a quick reminder about the next scheduled call.
In addition to the immediate feedback provided to participants, the intervention involved an email report sent to the participant’s parole officer. These reports were intended to improve decisions on the individual needs of each paroled individual and included a total score on each completed assessment; whether the overall direction was positive, negative, or neutral; and whether there were any missing responses. These reports contained only a summary of the scores, so the parole officer was not informed of specific responses, such as the use of alcohol or drugs (Andersson et al., 2020).
