Lucas County Cross-Site National Evaluation

The Second Chance Act Evaluation Participation Support program will provide support jurisdictions’ participation in an evaluation of their Second Chance Act-funded programs. This solicitation is a companion to the National Institute of Justice’s (NIJ’s) “Assessing the Effectiveness of the Second Chance Act Grant Program: A Phased Evaluation Approach” solicitation that seeks organizations to apply to serve as evaluators of the Second Chance Act programs. This program furthers the Department’s mission by supporting NIJ in fulfilling the statutory mandate set forth in The Second Chance Act Reauthorization Act of 2018 to evaluate the Second Chance Act grant program in order to further enhance the knowledge base of what works in offender reentry programming.

The recipients are current or former SCA grantees that are running reentry programs with clearly defined interventions and are ready for a randomized controlled trial and rigorous evaluation, per NIJ’s expectations. Selected grantees will receive funds to support their participation in the NIJ evaluation and can use funds to support tasks related to the evaluation, including but not limited to: data collection and extraction or a program coordinator to ensure successful collaboration among key partners.

The objectives of this award are as follows: provide consistent oversight to ensure the intervention is implemented with fidelity; coordinate with NIJ-funded evaluator(s), including providing the necessary qualitative and quantitative data; and ensure conditions are maintained to meet NIJ’s expectations for the execution of a successful randomized control trial study.

The recipient will use award funds to evaluate the Northwest Ohio Innovative Reentry Initiative (2019-CZ-BX-0028, Innovations in Reentry) where parents incarcerated at the Correctional Treatment Center (CTF), and the Western Ohio Regional Treatment and Habilitation (W.O.R.T.H.) Center, who are moderate to high-risk of recidivism, and are scheduled to be released under supervision (parole or probation) by September 30, 2022. The Initiative will serve at least 150 individuals and utilize random assignment to compare to a control group of 150 individuals.

CA/NCF