A support program offering housing, drug, mental health and other support services to high-risk criminals has failed to reduce reoffending, with those taking part more likely to end up back in jail.
Local Coordinated Multiagency offender management was launched in 2017 to increase access to various services with the aim of disrupting cycles of crime and domestic violence.
But an evaluation of the program by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found no significant association between participation in the program and reduced reoffending.
Instead, the bureau analysis found a 10 per cent increase in the likelihood of offenders returning to custody within a year of being referred to the program.
Bureau executive director Jackie Fitzgerald said reducing reoffending was a difficult task and programs often recorded little qualitative benefit.
“We often get mixed results with treatment programs,” she said.
“It is very difficult to affect behaviour change and these are people who are already reasonably well entrenched in the criminal justice system.”
Ms Fitzgerald noted those taking part in the program were already considered either medium- or high-risk reoffenders and evaluations of the program were inherently flawed by the lack of a reliable control group.
“We’ve done this evaluation, but it’s caveated that we can’t be sure the comparison group is exactly the same as the treatment group,” she said.
Ms Fitzgerald also noted participants might have seen benefits from the program beyond ending up back in prison.
“Maybe they’re more likely to be in employment, or reduce their drug use or there’s less disruption in the home – but we didn’t measure those things,” she said.
One of the measures that does work to reduce reoffending is community supervision, such as having to report to a parole officer, she said.
Run jointly by the Department of Communities and Justice, NSW Police and NSW Health, the support program has been operating since September 2017 in Liverpool, Parramatta, and Dubbo.
In 2019 it was rolled out to several other areas, including Campbelltown, Mount Druitt, Wollongong, Newcastle, Moree, Taree and Wagga Wagga.