report presents findings on recidivism of females from a federal Bureau of Justice Statistics study on persons released from state prison across 34 states in 2012. It compares females and males by their commitment offenses, recidivism patterns during the 5 years following release (from 2012 to 2017), and post-release offenses. The study found that about 11% (45,100) of the 408,300 persons released from state prison in 2012 in 34 states were female. About 7 in 10 (69%) females released in 2012 were serving time for a property or drug offense, compared to about 5 in 10 (52%) males. Females (17%) were less likely than males (29%) to be serving time for a violent offense. During the 5 years after their 2012 release, more than half (55%) of females who were serving time for a violent offense were arrested, while more than a third (38%) had a new conviction and about a fourth (27%) returned to prison. These recidivism rates were higher across all three measures among males serving time for a violent offense: 66% arrested, 49% convicted, and 43% returned to prison.

This third annual report required under the federal First Step Act (FSA) of 2018, legislation intended to improve criminal justice outcomes for federal offenders, assesses the progress of FSA’s implementation and impact. It includes information responsive to the reporting requirements of the FSA as well as findings on the ongoing efforts of the U.S. Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to realize the goals of the First Step Act and summarizes the U.S. Department of Justice activities in that respect since the publication of the last annual Report, in April 2022. This report found that, consistent with the FSA’s emphasis on transitioning individuals to a community setting, the U.S. Department of Justice has expanded the use of home confinement for individuals who do not pose a danger to the community. Additionally, within the last year, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has added 15 new evidence based recidivism reduction programs and advanced many existing initiatives and efforts to expand the quality and quantity of services and program opportunities for the population.

This report summarizes findings from the Urban Institute’s national scan of juvenile probation policies and practices, which involved a scan of literature and nationwide surveys of state and local juvenile probation agencies. The goal of the scan was to understand and document variation in probation policy and practice within and across states and to offer recommendations and considerations for key stakeholders in juvenile probation policy and practice. The findings span different parts of juvenile probation, including the purpose of juvenile probation, diversion, disposition, supervision, fines and fees and restitution, data collection and sharing, partnerships, and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings indicate much variation in juvenile probation policies and practices across states, within regions, and within states. There also seems to be disagreement between state and local juvenile probation agencies regarding how much oversight states have of different juvenile probation policies. The findings suggest that delays implementing policies and pilot programs and resource constraints at the state and local levels could be driving variation and disagreement within states. This variation limits understanding of local policies and practices at the state level. This inhibits wide use of evidence-informed policies and practices in juvenile probation; it also inhibits states’ ability to implement and oversee policies at the local level and to provide localities the resources they need. Based on these findings, the authors offer considerations for federal, state, and local stakeholders seeking to improve juvenile probation policy and practice.

Data governance is a core obligation for leaders and staff across any agency that collects, stores or uses individuals’ data. It ensures that individuals’ personal information is protected, and can support the continuous improvement of data quality and use, particularly when it includes well-defined processes, structure and responsibilities. Effective data governance can promote trust among those who administer the data systems, those who use them and those whose private information the data systems collect. This report identifies principles that state leaders — even those who lack expertise in data or data systems — can understand and embrace. Six principles include (1) align data governance with a coherent, shared vision for how data helps people; (2) engage and support state leaders; (3) engage and support staff; (4) involve the people data systems are intended to benefit; (5) focus on documentation and transparency; and (6) incorporate mechanisms for flexibility, self-correction and innovation. These six principles apply to the governance of data systems within a single agency as well as to governance of statewide longitudinal data systems, which incorporate data from multiple agencies.

Although dual enrollment programming and interest in how that programming shapes students’ college outcomes have expanded considerably in the past 20 years, policymakers, educational administrators, and practitioners do not have adequate information about which dual enrollment structural options are most effective. Using statewide administrative data in Texas on students who entered 9th grade in 2015 or 2016 and took at least one dual enrollment course through a community college, this paper examines dual enrollment course enrollments and outcomes among recent high school entrants. The authors find that the bulk of students in the analytic sample (81%) took only academic dual enrollment courses, with 12% taking only career and technical education dual enrollment courses, and 7% taking a mix of academic and career and technical education dual enrollment courses. The authors note clear differences in the demographic composition of students across dual enrollment course type. Women comprised 60% of academic dual enrollment students and only 39% of career and technical dual enrollment students. Among academic dual enrollment students, 49% identified as White, 37% as Hispanic, 7% as Black, and 5% as Asian. Additionally, the authors find that among academic dual enrollment coursetakers, 80% enrolled in any college in Texas, 49% initially enrolled in a Texas public university, and 34% initially enrolled in a Texas public two-year college; among career and technical dual enrollment coursetakers, 53% enrolled in any college in Texas, 20% at a Texas public university, and 35.9% at a Texas public two-year college.

This paper examines the effects of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), a comprehensive performance pay program for teachers implemented in high-need schools on students’ longer-run educational, criminal justice, and economic self-sufficiency outcomes in South Carolina. Using linked administrative data, the authors leverage the quasi-randomness of the timing of program adoption across schools to identify causal effects of the school reform. The program improved educational attainment and reduced both criminal activity and dependence on government assistance in early adulthood. The authors found that program benefits far exceeded its costs. Analysis also shows that TAP led to improvements in both students’ test-score and non-test-score outcomes throughout their high school trajectory. Teachers and parents both reported feeling more satisfied with the post-TAP adoption learning environment. The authors propose mechanisms for observed long-run effects and provide evidence consistent with these explanations.

In this report, the authors use several years of U.S. Department of Defense civilian workforce data to quantify trends in demographic-group compensation differences and other employment‐related outcomes among the U.S. Department of Defense civilian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce. The authors provide an overview of the composition of the U.S. Department of Defense civilian STEM workforce, then perform an analysis that controls for observable characteristics, such as education, that might explain those group differences. Next, they describe the compensation implications of the demographic composition of civilian pay plans and explore compensation differences while holding U.S. Department of Defense component, geographic location, and STEM occupational category constant. The authors find that in the U.S. Department of Defense civilian workforce, White men have higher levels of unadjusted compensation than all other demographic groups except for Asian men and women. The authors note that controlling for workforce and organizational characteristics reduces compensation differences between White men and all other groups except for Black women, who would receive an additional $7,500 annually if they were compensated like White men. The authors conclude with key findings and recommendations for U.S. Department of Defense to better understand and address demographic-related inequalities within its STEM workforce, including establishing additional guidance for component use of alternative pay plans for U.S. Department of Defense STEM workers and conducting additional analysis to understand the impact of entry-level compensation on demographic-group differences in compensation.

This report compares the outcomes of parents who had reached a contempt referral for failure to make child support payments and were assigned to a Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) services group with those who were not assigned to a PJAC services group. Developed by the Office of Child Support Enforcement, PJAC integrated principles of procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement practices in six child support agencies across the United States as an alternative to standard contempt proceedings. These services aimed to address noncustodial parents’ reasons for nonpayment, promote their positive engagement with the child support program and the other parent, and improve the consistency and completeness of their payments, all while avoiding a court-led civil contempt process. For this study, parents who had reached the point of a contempt referral were assigned either to a PJAC services group, which had access to child support services informed by procedural justice, delivered by a specially trained PJAC case manager, or to a business-as-usual group, which proceeded to the standard contempt process. This study found that the PJAC intervention did not meet its primary goals of improving payment compliance and regularity. It generated a small but statistically significant reduction in payment compliance and had no effect on payment regularity. However, PJAC successfully reduced reliance on civil contempt filings, both in the year after study enrollment and over a longer time frame of 30 months. Notably, however, this effect is a feature of the demonstration design, in that parents assigned to the PJAC services group were diverted from contempt and, for the most part, were only referred to the contempt process if they were not responsive to their PJAC case managers. Notably, only small decreases in payment outcomes accompanied PJAC’s large reduction in civil contempt filings, suggesting that PJAC may still be a better option overall.

Intellectual or developmental disabilities, such as Down syndrome, are conditions that are present from childhood that may result in difficulties with learning, problem solving, and using everyday life skills. Medicaid home-and community-based services (HCBS) programs provide a range of services that can help individuals with these disabilities with daily activities, such as eating and bathing. Reviewing Medicaid data for Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that over 45% of beneficiaries with intellectual or developmental disabilities enrolled in HCBS programs had an additional health condition in 2019. Health conditions included behavioral health conditions, such as anxiety disorders, and chronic physical conditions, such as high blood pressure. Among beneficiaries enrolled in comprehensive HCBS programs, which cover round-the-clock care, the prevalence of behavioral health conditions was higher than in the overall Medicaid population. The GAO’s analysis found that average per-beneficiary Medicaid expenditures in 2019 for beneficiaries with intellectual or developmental disabilities in selected states ranged from about $51,000 to $70,000. This is two to five times higher than the average expenditure for all Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities. In Florida, the average spending for beneficiaries with intellectual or developmental disabilities was $51,356, compared to the estimated average of $14,423 for all Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities. The GAO’s analysis also found for 2019 that average HCBS program expenditures were generally lower than states’ estimated costs for servicing beneficiaries with intellectual or developmental disabilities in institutional settings; in Florida, the difference was $94,072.

Case investigation and contact tracing (CI/CT) is a critical part of the public health response to COVID-19. Individuals’ experiences with CI/CT for COVID-19 varied based on geographic location, changes in knowledge and guidelines, access to testing and vaccination, as well as demographic characteristics including age, race, ethnicity, income, and political ideology. In this paper, the authors explore the experiences and behaviors of adults with positive SARS-CoV-2 test results, or who were exposed to a person with COVID-19, to understand their knowledge, motivations, and facilitators and barriers to their actions. The authors conducted focus groups and one-on-one interviews with 94 cases and 90 contacts from across the United States. The authors found that participants were concerned about infecting or exposing others, which motivated them to isolate or quarantine, notify contacts, and get tested. Although most cases and contacts were not contacted by CI/CT professionals, those who were reported a positive experience and received helpful information. Many cases and contacts reported seeking information from family, friends, health care providers, as well as television news and Internet sources. Although participants reported similar perspectives and experiences across demographic characteristics, some highlighted inequities in receiving COVID-19 information and resources.

Receipt of follow-up care after emergency department visits for chronic ambulatory care sensitive conditions—asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure, diabetes, and/or hypertension—is crucial. Researchers assessed veterans' follow-up care knowledge, perceptions, and receipt of care after visits to Veterans Health Administration (VA) emergency departments for chronic ambulatory care sensitive conditions. Follow-up care was completely received/scheduled in 20 of 35 veterans, partially received/scheduled in eight, and not received in seven veterans. Among those who received care, it was received within specified time frames half the time. However, interviewees often did not recall these time frames or reported them to be longer than specified in the emergency department notes. Veterans who had not yet received or scheduled follow-up care commonly did not recall follow-up care instructions, believed that they did not need this care since they were not currently having symptoms, or thought that such care would be difficult to obtain due to appointment unavailability and/or difficulties communicating with follow-up care providers. Among the 28 veterans in whom all or some follow-up care had been received/scheduled, for 25 cases VA staff reached out to the veteran or the appointment was scheduled prior to or during the emergency department visit. The authors recommend that the VA should prioritize implementing processes for emergency departments to efficiently communicate veterans' needs to follow-up care providers and systems for reaching out to veterans and/or arranging for care prior to veterans leaving the emergency department. The VA should also enhance practices using multimodal approaches for educating veterans about recommended emergency department follow-up care and improve mechanisms for veterans to communicate with follow-up care providers.