Evaluation of the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Program at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility, 1997-1998

The goal for this study was to conduct a process evaluation of the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) program, called the Genesis program, at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility (SNMCD) by examining the program's structure and assessing its intermediate impact upon participating inmates. The study focuses on answering three research questions: (1) Who were the program participants? (2) What were the characteristics of the program? (3) Was the program reaching the most appropriate offenders, or were its participants primarily offenders who were not likely to become recidivists? The study contains information on every inmate who entered the Genesis program from July 31, 1997, to July 31, 1998. For evaluation purposes, the researchers designed their own data collection form which they used to collect relevant information from each participant's treatment program file. Each participant's file was maintained by Genesis program staff and was kept for the duration each inmate was in the program. From each program participant at intake, using the data collection instrument, the researchers collected demographic information, substance abuse history, and criminal history. The data are provided in two parts. Both parts are from the same data collection instrument. Part 1 covers Questions 1 through 15 of the data collection instrument, while Part 2 covers Questions 16 through 34 of the data collection instrument. Part 1 includes demographic variables about the inmate such as birth date, age, ethnicity, citizenship, years of education, prior employment status, longest employment, and average weekly income. It also includes incarceration information such as confinement date, length of current sentence, RSAT admission date, and expected parole date, and criminal history information such as age at first adult arrest, number of juvenile arrests, number of adult arrests, date of first adult arrest, date of last adult arrest, and number of years served in prison. There are also variables to address the inmate's drug use history as a juvenile and as an adult. Part 2 continues with the drug use history of the inmate as an adult with information about drugs used by IV injection, number of alcohol withdrawals, number of drug overdoses, number of detoxes, inpatient treatment received, outpatient treatment received, average amount of money spent on drugs, percentage of income spent on drugs, number of family members who use alcohol or drugs, and how they were related to the inmate. In addition, the file contains demographic information, such as current marital status and number of children, and the inmate's psychological history including depression, anxiety, anger, trouble understanding, concentrating, or remembering, attempted suicide, prescribed medication, and hospitalization. Criminal career variables include length of criminal career, all past charges, weapons used during any crime, number of times a weapon was used, and total number of convictions.