Answer

Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program (Washington)

vs
Allegheny County (Penn.) Jail-Based Reentry Specialist Program

Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program was developed in Washington to provide intensive correctional services to the persons who have persistent mental illness and about to be released to the community. The Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program follows an assertive community treatment offered through the clock access in a multidisciplinary staff who provide specialized services to the person to meet arrays of service for the benefit of fitting back in the society from jail. While on the other hand, Allegheny County (Penn.) Jail-Based Reentry Specialist Program commits itself to reduce the levels of recidivism through the preparation of the inmate to reentry into society after spending time in jail. The program offers services to inmates as well as returning citizens. This executive summary aims to explain the similarities and differences in the two programs, analyse their outcomes, and determine the effectiveness of both and their related benefits to the correctional institutions.

Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program (Washington): there have been significant positive results that mentally ill persons using an ACT model have been reported to be less time in custody and lower rates in the rearrest (Silva, 2019). Persons who have had these program are better reportedly to have attained a better life standard since they rarely spend time in custody for retentions for violations of the law. Positive results from this program involve; unlimited freedom to reenter the community or the prison. Outcomes from various studies indicate that more than 75% of the participants in this program who had severe mental problems and undergone through the programs are positively matched into the society with changed behaviour. Participants of the Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program substantially have lower rates of convictions due to felony offences (25% vs 39%) in a follow-up interval of two years after the release from jail (Silva, 2019). The program is aimed to target people with low risks and high needy in society.

The targeted population for the program requires that an individual has to suffer from a mood disorder, depression, bipolar depression, schizophrenia and is not capable of acquiring adequate housing and medication treatment from other facilities. According to the correctional staff, the targeted population for this treatment must have had direct influences on their crime and deemed unlikely to re-offend again if exposed to mental health treatment at an early stage (Silva, 2019). Participants who have undergone this program have fewer chances of reoffending only if they voluntarily join the program. They decide to participate. They are finally judged by the correctional staff, where most of the studies pose that these participants are motivated and have a likelihood of benefiting from the treatment.

Allegheny County (Penn.) Jail-Based Reentry Specialist Program; is a program that aims at reducing the recidivism levels through preparing inmates for re-entry into society after spending time in prisons. The programs’ significant activity involves incarcerating and assisting inmates returning to the community from the prisons (Hewitt, 2020). The program for inmates has various services that include behaviour therapies in the areas where inmates seem to be unconscious of their actions, drug, alcohol and substance. It also offers rehabilitation for addicts and potential addicts, GED classes, vocational lessons and specialized batterer intervention, and family support. The programs’ reentry services are drug, alcohol and substance assessment, behavioural and cognitive therapies, specialized battered interventions, housing and accommodation services, GED, training and transportation activities, and job training and placements. The two programs are designed to reduce the chances of inmates re-offending, and these are done through need assessments, coordinated planning of reentry, and are coupled with the use of evidence-based practices and programs. The program targets the already released inmates from correctional institutions.

The most effective method to use is the Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program; this is because the technique focuses on correctional services to persons with persistent mental illness and about to be released to the community (Silva, 2019). The program determines the behaviour response of the participants before they are released to society, which is a progressive move to the development of the correctional institution and hence recommendable to the institutions. According to Smith (2020), the statistical analysis for the program shows that the outcomes from various studies indicate that more than 75% of the participants in this program who had severe mental problems and undergone the programs are positively matched into the society with changed behaviour.

The program will benefit the correctional institution by providing a reputation of effective corrections to criminal offenders who are expected to be role model to society once they are released from jail (Silva, 2019). The program also will be helpful to most of the participants since it provides assessment classes to the offenders. They will be of great importance to their life experiences, such as job training assessments similar to those in the second program and the critical observations by the correctional staff, which will enhance as a counselling session for offenders, making them responsible citizens after release from jail.

In conclusion, both the Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program (Washington) and the Allegheny County (Penn.) Jail-Based Reentry Specialist Program is advanced methods of dealing with offenders who are increasingly committing crimes and continue being a threat to society in various dimensions harming the young generation. Prison mental health has adversely caused high rates of reoffending against inmates even when they are in prisons. Hence, there is a need for either of the programs to be initiated with the current technological developments to enhance a better society in the future through correctional institutions.