Rural Jail Reentry Non-Clinical Case Management: An Examination of the Middle Tennessee Rural Reentry (MTRR) Program

Abstract

This study evaluates the Middle Tennessee Rural Reentry (MTRR) program. MTRR is a rural reentry program funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance that uses non-clinical case managers. Specifically, the program provided non-clinical case management and services to 144 medium and high-risk offenders released from a rural county correctional facility for up to 12 months after incarceration. Fully 56.9% of offenders completed the program, with 52.8% recidivating (i.e., arrest and revocation of supervision). Program completion did not have a statistically significant impact on recidivism. Moreover, females who participated in the program had a significantly lower overall likelihood of recidivism than when compared to male participants. Additional findings and policy implications for rural jail programs are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Case management
• jail
• non-clinical
• offender
• reentry
• rural

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Individuals were not required to be on probation to participate, nor was failure to comply grounds for violation. This is likely a reflection of the few inmates released unsupervised.

2 An Independent-Samples T-Test was conducted comparing recidivism between those released from jail into the program prior to March 1^st, 2020 (when COVID-19 impacted jail operations) and those released from jail after March 1^st, 2020. However, there were no significant differences between these two groups, suggesting the pandemic’s minimal impact on the program’s operations.