Enhancing prisoner reentry through access to prison-based and post-incarceration aftercare treatment: experiences from the Illinois Sheridan Correctional Center therapeutic community

In an attempt to enhance dramatically the access of Illinois’ prison inmates to substance abuse treatment services within prison and following their release, the Sheridan Correctional Center was opened in 2004 by the Illinois Department of Corrections as a fully-dedicated substance abuse treatment prison operating under a therapeutic community design. During the first 5 years of implementation and operation, the program has improved the rate of aftercare admission and completion through enhanced pre-release planning and coordination, the development of community-based partnerships, and a transformation of the parole model and, in doing so, has overcome many of the barriers to effective offender re-entry. The analyses illustrate how aftercare admission and completion has improved during the course of implementation, and what factors appear to predict aftercare entry and completion. The article discusses the implications of how this improved access to aftercare impacts upon post-release outcomes (i.e., recidivism).