Data Collection
The Department provided recidivism datasets for prisoners released from 2001/02 until 2009/10. These datasets included the details of each sentenced prisoner that was released in each financial year, including name, Aboriginal status, gender, exit facility, program completion, discharge type, and whether they returned to prison or corrections. Additional information was obtained using structured query language (SQL) data extraction from the Total Offender Management Solution (TOMS) database. This provided data on all other factors included in recidivism analyses.
Description of Recidivism Analysis
To determine the association between selected risk factors and the likelihood of reoffending, a multivariate analysis known as ‘logistic regression’ was undertaken. The advantage of multivariate analysis is that it can determine whether a factor independently predicts recidivism while accounting for the influence of all other factors included in the analysis. For example, a simple analysis may suggest that prisoners with higher educational attainment have a lower chance of recidivism. However, this relationship may be due to prisoners with a higher educational attainment being less likely to be Aboriginal, male, or younger for example. A multivariate analysis could determine whether educational attainment is associated with recidivism after accounting for the influence of Aboriginal status, gender, and age in this example.
Treatment Program Analyses
In the determination of program allocation accuracy, all treatment program allocation results since the time of the 2008 review was extracted from the TOMS database using SQL data extraction. This comprised 42,582 checklist results from 8154 distinct prisoners between September 2007 and December 2013. Only the most recent treatment checklist for each prisoner was included in the analysis. In the determination of unmet treatment needs for recently released prisoners, data was extracted from the TOMS database using the ‘custom reports and data extraction’ feature. The Department provided details on all programs they provided and supplied all evaluations that have been conducted on treatment programs. An interview was also conducted with the Clinical Governance Unit.