Program Profile: Kansas Senate Bill 123 (Alternative Sentencing Policy for Non-Violent Drug Possession Offenders)

The Kansas State Senate Bill established a program that provided mandatory community-based drug treatment for nonviolent persons convicted of a preliminary offense for drug possession. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences at the 18-month follow-up for reconviction or revocation between defendants who received mandatory drug treatment and the unmatched comparison group of defendants who were sentenced to standard community corrections.

A No Effects rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s) and may result in a negative outcome(s).

Program Goals

As an alternative to incarceration, Kansas Senate Bill (SB) 123 created mandatory community-based drug treatment for nonviolent persons convicted of drug offenses. The main goals of the program were to keep nonviolent persons convicted of drug offenses out of prison, require them to participate in a mandatory 18-month drug-treatment program, and rehabilitate them so they could become nonoffending, productive members of society. Kansas SB 123 was guided by an interest in diverting people who were prison bound to community-based supervision, while still preserving public safety.

Kansas SB 123 differed from other compulsory drug-treatment programs because it required judges to sentence eligible persons to 18 months of treatment and required them to accept such conditions. Other alternatives to incarceration drug-treatment programs (such as drug courts) usually allow for discretion for judicial staff with regard to sentencing or for the person with regard to accepting the terms of sentencing.

Program Components/Program Eligibility

Determining eligibility of a program participant was based solely on the original conviction and past criminal history. Participants had to be convicted of a first or second degree drug offense, and they could have no prior convictions for a personal offense or for a drug sale or manufacture offense. The individual’s motivation to participate in treatment was not considered when sentencing him or her to drug treatment. Judges were required to impose 18 months of treatment and supervision provided by community corrections. The prohibition of judges’ implementing prison sentences or other forms of punitive consequences was an important component of the bill. SB 123 was essentially mandated to every nonviolent person convicted of drug offenses in Kansas.

Following initial sentencing into the program, community corrections staff relied on local providers to conduct various assessments of program participants to determine the appropriate course of treatment. This team of community corrections staff and local providers met frequently to discuss program participants and adjust their treatment plans on an as-needed basis.

Community correction staff, drug counselors, and judges were given discretion to determine the revocation of SB 123 sentences if participants were noncompliant. Revocation resulted in returning to prison, starting a new sentence to standard community corrections, or starting the program over.

Study 1

Rengifo and Stemen (2009) evaluated the policy implications of Kansas’s Senate Bill (SB) 123. SB 123 was a mandatory sentencing option for judges who adjudicated nonviolent individuals with a criminal history involving drugs. The treatment group included all “SB 123 Eligible” individuals sentenced to SB 123 between Nov. 1, 2003, and Aug. 31, 2005 (n = 1,494). The comparison group included all “SB 123 eligible” individuals sentenced to prison, court services, or standard community corrections without SB 123 drug treatment (n = 4,395) from April 1, 2001, through Aug. 31, 2005. The study sample included only individuals who completed at least 18 months of community-based supervision during the study to account for differences in time at risk. The CrimeSolutions review of this study focused on the comparisons between “SB 123 Eligible” individuals in the treatment group and “SB 123 eligible” individuals in the unmatched comparison group sentenced to standard community corrections.

The treatment group was 81.6 percent white, 17.3 percent Black, 8.2 percent Hispanic and 1.1 percent other. The comparison group sentenced to prison was 77.4 percent white, 21.3 percent Black, 14.1 percent Hispanic, and 1.2 percent other. The comparison group sentenced to standard community corrections was 75.5 percent white, 22.7 percent Black, 8.9 percent Hispanic, and 1.7 percent other. The comparison group sentenced to court services was 78.2 percent white, 20.1 percent Black, 14.1 percent Hispanic, and 1.6 percent other. The treatment group, prison comparison group, standard community corrections comparison group, and court services comparison group were all mostly male (71.0 percent, 80.7 percent, 76.2 percent and 73.5 percent, respectively).

Recidivism outcomes were tracked for both treatment and comparison groups through February 2007. The main outcome measures were recidivism, reconviction for a new offense, and revocation to prison for a technical violation in the first 18 months of follow-up in the community. Data was collected from the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC). Numerous offender-level covariates were included in the analyses. Measures were included that looked at their criminal history and categorized the seriousness of offenses committed before their drug possession convictions (from 1 = least serious to 5 = most serious). The study measurement included their additional charges at time of drug possession convictions and their demographic attributes.

In the first evaluation component of the study, multinomial logistical regression estimated the effect of SB 123 relative to other sentences on recidivism at the 18-month follow-up date. The authors did not conduct subgroup analyses.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: