Strategies to productively reincorporate formerly incarcerated black and Latino youth into communities

Doleac will conduct a systematic literature review to support the work of The Lab @ DC as they work to design re-entry programs for formerly-incarcerated Black and Latino youth. The Lab@ DC designs evidence-based policy and program interventions and evaluations and is situated within the Office of the City Administrator’s Office of Performance Management, and with the Deputy Mayor of Public Safety in Washington, DC. The review responds to a recent increase in violent crime and increased political pressures to devise effective policy solutions that rely on research. Doleac will focus on economics and criminology studies that measure the causal impacts of pre- and post-release re-integration programs. Key outcomes will include reductions in recidivism and improved employment rates. Doleac will consider how the effectiveness of the programs varies depending on when in the incarceration and release process they intervene with youth, as well as their size and scalability, and the costs of implementation. The review will rank studies based on the credibility of the methods used to measure the effects of a program, with attention to the appropriateness of these methods for answering specific research questions, their rigor, and the extent to which they control for other factors. The synthesis will consider the relative effectiveness of the programs and policies and whether each program has a significant impact on outcomes, especially for Black and Latino youth. Doleac will then identify which programs currently exist in Washington, DC, and present the findings to The Lab @ DC. She will also offer suggestions about new program designs to address gaps that the literature review identifies.