Bill > H1364

This bill requires the Commissioner of the Department of Correction (DOC) and the Commissioner of the Department of Youth Services (DYS) to report on the outcomes of sex offender treatment programs, specifically focusing on results upon an individual's discharge from these departments. The bill mandates that the methods used to measure these outcomes must be more rigorous than simple anecdotes, personal stories, correlations, or pre- and post-program assessments. Instead, the reports must compare two groups: those who received the treatment program and those who did not or did not complete it. Crucially, these two groups must be similar in their risk and need to reoffend, as determined by the DOC's COMPAS risk assessment tool and a comparable tool used by the DYS, with the only significant difference being participation in the treatment program. The reports will be generated annually and must include the rate of recidivism (reoffending) for each group, noting whether there is a statistically significant difference between them.