Program Profile: Project Greenlight

This is an institution-based transitional services demonstration program, designed to be a short, intensive intervention, which could provide a greater number of individuals with reentry services at a lower cost. The program is rated No Effects. Program participants showed a statistically significant higher rate of parole revocation and rearrests for new offenses, compared with comparison group participants. However, there were no significant differences in felony rearrest rates between groups.

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

Project Greenlight was an institution-based transitional services demonstration program that was piloted in New York State’s Queensboro Correctional Facility. The program was designed to be a short, intensive intervention that could serve a greater number of individuals with reentry services at a lower cost. The 8-week program concentrated on addressing key issues that face people when they transition from prison to the community, including housing, employment, and drug treatment.

Program Theory

Components of the Project Greenlight program were based on research that has identified principles that characterize effective correctional treatment programs. These principles are that treatment should address dynamic (criminogenic) factors; programs should employ cognitive–behavioral, skills-oriented, or multimodal treatment approaches; interventions should concentrate on the needs of participants, with higher risk persons receiving more intensive services; and interventions should be implemented appropriately (Wilson and Davis 2006).

Services Provided

Project Greenlight provided prerelease services and connected participants to community-based services, but there was no follow-up in the community. So they could participate in program services, inmates were transferred to the Queensboro Correctional Facility roughly 60 to 90 days before their scheduled conditional release date. The first week provided participants with an orientation that introduced them to each of the program components and to the staff. Program staff provided participants with the information they needed to find and keep a job, avoid drug and alcohol relapse, and make better decisions in all areas of their lives following release from prison. Programming was designed to be nonsequential, to accommodate people working at different levels, and to adjust services as new participants entered the program at different times.

One component of the program emphasized changing antisocial behaviors and thinking by providing cognitive–behavioral treatment. The Reasoning and Rehabilitation (R&R) program was adapted to run for 60 days, which is a shorter period than the program was originally designed for and a significant deviation from the program model. Job readiness training was provided, which included preparing for and conducting job interviews and guidance in workplace behavior. The program also aimed at strengthening the practical living skills of inmates. Sessions covered budgeting, time-management strategies, how to use public transportation, how to set up and use a bank account, and where to get emergency cash or noncash assistance when money is scarce. Finally, drug treatment concentrated on relapse prevention and substance abuse awareness. Those participants who could acknowledge their substance-use issues went to a relapse prevention group, where each person designed a relapse prevention plan and prepared to enter treatment upon release.

In addition, the program helped participants build social supports that would be available upon their release from prison. A community coordinator built a network of community-service providers, and participants were connected with the providers before their release. A family counselor and family specialist worked with the individuals and their families to address any remaining issues before release. Program participants were also introduced to parole officers and informed about parole supervision requirements so they could avoid parole-related problems.

Detailed release plans were created for each program participant, which captured what participants needed to do after they were released in areas of employment, education, community resources, family, and substance abuse. Participants worked on these plans with their case managers, who in turn discussed areas in the release plan with the parole officers who supervised the incarcerated persons in the community. The field parole officer could make changes to the plans as an incarcerated person’s circumstances changed after release.

Key Personnel

Project Greenlight program staff included corrections counselors, an institutional parole officer, an alcohol and substance abuse treatment team, corrections officers, a family reintegration specialist, a family counselor, a community coordinator, a job developer, an operations director, a project director, a project assistant, and field parole officers.

Additional Information: Negative Program Effects

An outcome evaluation (described below in Evaluation Methodology and Outcomes) compared Project Greenlight subjects with a group of inmates who received transitional services through a program that was already in operation at the Queensboro Correctional Facility and with a group of inmates in Upstate New York prisons who received no transitional services. Project Greenlight appears to have increased the rearrest and parole revocation rates of inmates who participated in the program, when compared with inmates who did not participate following release from prison.

Study 1

Wilson and colleagues (2005) employed a quasi-experimental design to study the effects of participating in Project Greenlight (GL) on postrelease outcomes.

Potential study participants were identified by the New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) MIS/Classification section based on specific eligibility criteria. Eligible inmates were defined as correctional release inmates who were 75 to 105 days from release. Only male inmates could participate in the study, and only inmates who were paroled to one of the five boroughs of New York City were included in the final analysis. Once identified as eligible, inmates were transferred to the Queensboro Correctional Facility in their home community of New York City. People were not eligible to participate if they had a conviction for a sex offense, a high institutional risk score, a current disciplinary sanction, medical reasons, existing warrants, or an ineligible current assignment (e.g., work release, shock incarceration) because Queensboro was a minimum-security facility.

Eligible study participants who transferred to Queensboro were assigned to one of two primary study groups: the GL intervention and a comparison group that participated in the DOCS Transitional Service Programming (TSP), an existing transitional services program. During the first two weeks, the first 52 participants were immediately assigned to the GL intervention until the program was filled. After program slots were filled, the remaining participants were assigned to the TSP intervention for the next two months. After the initial group of GL participants began to leave prison, the primary protocol that was in place involved haphazard sequential assignment to one of the two groups at Queensboro on approximately a two-to-one basis (intervention to comparison). A third group (Upstate) also served as a comparison group and consisted of inmates who were not eligible to participate in GL services and who were ultimately released directly from upstate prisons to New York City without specialized reentry programming. This CrimeSolutions review focused on the comparison between those in the GL program and the Upstate individuals.

The sample initially was to include 2,016 potentially eligible participants, but the study was terminated early (the study lasted one year rather than the intended three). The final count was 805 potentially eligible participants; of those, 735 inmates were included in the final analysis. GL participants (n=344) were 57.6 percent non-Hispanic Black, 37.2 percent Hispanic, and 5.3 percent non-Hispanic white/other, with an average age of 33.6 years. The Upstate control group (n=113) was 53.1 percent non-Hispanic Black, 40.7 percent Hispanic, and 6.2 percent non-Hispanic white/other, with an average age of 32.5 years. There were no significant differences between the groups on demographics. There were also no significant differences on criminal history.

Data for the study came from various sources. Background information, including demographic and institutional data, on study participants was obtained from the DOCS. The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) provided information on criminal history in New York State. The primary outcome measure of interest was recidivism, including arrests and parole violations that occurred in the 12-month period after returning to the community. Information on new offenses came from a comprehensive statewide database kept by DCJS. The Division of Parole provided violation information and data on drug tests conducted during parole supervision.

The final analysis included only study participants who were under parole supervision in one of New York City’s five boroughs. Study participants paroled outside of New York City were not included. The study used survival analysis to examine postrelease failure, and control variables were introduced through Cox proportional hazard models. The study authors conducted subgroup analyses on age, education, ethnicity, and prior arrests.

Subgroup Analysis

Wilson and colleagues (2005) conducted subgroup analyses on age, education, ethnicity, and prior arrests. They found that in terms of program effect, the addition of control variables did not mediate the negative effect of the Project Greenlight (GL) program. In other words, age (e.g., being older or younger), level of education, ethnicity, and prior arrest history did not explain why GL participants were rearrested and had their parole revoked at higher rates, compared with comparison group participants.

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

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

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Adult Reentry Programs

This practice involves correctional programs that focus on the transition of individuals from prison into the community. Reentry programs involve treatment or services that have been initiated while the individual is in custody and a follow-up component after the individual is released. The practice is rated Promising for reducing recidivism.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types

Rehabilitation Programs for Adults Convicted of a Crime

This practice includes programs that are designed to reduce recidivism among adults by improving their behaviors, skills, mental health, social functioning, and access to education and employment. They may become participants in rehabilitation programs during multiple points in their involvement with the criminal justice system. This practice is rated Promising for reducing recidivism among adults who have been convicted of an offense.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?