One potential way that a revised capstone project for criminal justice students could help reduce recidivism rates is by focusing the project on developing and proposing an innovative recidivism reduction program. Such a program could then be implemented and evaluated for its effectiveness.

Rather than a standard research paper, the capstone project would require students to comprehensively research what types of programs have shown success in reducing recidivism in other jurisdictions. This would involve analyzing rigorous evaluations of a wide variety of initiatives such as job skills training, substance abuse treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, transitional housing assistance, mentorship programs, educational programs, and more. Students would have to pick two or three programs that have demonstrated the greatest positive impacts through randomized controlled trials or strong quasi-experimental research designs.

With guidance from their capstone advisors and outside experts, students would then take those evidence-based programs and propose customized versions tailored for implementation in their local criminal justice system. This would involve determining appropriate target populations, developing detailed curricula and service delivery models, creating performance metrics and evaluation plans, proposing budgets and identifying potential funding sources, and outlining how the programs could be integrated into the existing community corrections infrastructure. Students may also suggest pilot testing the programs on a small scale first before expanding.

The proposals would then be presented to leaders in the local criminal justice system such as judges, probation/parole officials, corrections administrators, policymakers, and social service providers. Having been rigorously researched and customized to the local context based on best practices, these innovative program ideas could gain serious consideration for piloting and adoption. Proposing a well-developed recidivism reduction program that showed promise and secured buy-in could help provide an impetus for actual implementation.

If one or more of the student capstone proposals were adopted, the students may then be given the opportunity to help with the initial implementation through internships or other hands-on involvement. They could assist with program start-up activities such as further refinements to operations, stakeholder coordination, materials development, and participant recruitment. Even if not directly assisting implementation, the students’ recidivism programs would become primed for formal evaluation.

Rigorous evaluations would be crucial for determining each program’s actual effectiveness in reducing recidivism once put into practice. Randomized controlled trials or strong quasi-experimental designs over the medium- to long-term would allow for robust impact estimates. Factors like rates of re-arrest, reconviction, and reincarceration could be directly compared between treatment and comparison groups followed for several years post-release. Such rigorous outcome evaluations would provide definitive evidence on whether the student-proposed programs succeeded at lowering recidivism as intended based on the original evidence-based models.

Positive evaluation results showing that one or more capstone proposal programs reduced recidivism once implemented could have wider impacts. First, it would demonstrate the value of the revised capstone project model itself by putting criminal justice students’ work directly into action and testing ideas in the real world. This kind of experiential, outcomes-focused activity allows students to make an impact beyond just writing a paper. Second, a successful program could spread to other jurisdictions through replication supported by the evaluation findings. Third, evaluation results may aid in securing future funding to expand and continue proven programs over the long run. Reduced recidivism would also create cost savings to the criminal justice system that could be reinvested.

Over the next decade, adoption and positive evaluation of recidivism programs developed through this revised capstone model could significantly reduce recidivism rates community-wide. Even modest reductions of just a few percentage points applied to thousands of former prisoners would prevent many criminal acts and interrupt cycles of criminal behavior. Fewer victims would be harmed, communities made safer, and immense taxpayer dollars saved from avoided future incarceration costs. The programs’ multi-faceted, evidence-based designs targeting known criminogenic needs aim to permanently change behavior and set individuals on a new prosocial path—one less likely to lead back to criminal justice system involvement.

Reorienting the traditional capstone project towards developing innovative, customized, evidence-based recidivism reduction programs shows strong potential for realizing long-term positive impact. If capstone proposals gain adoption and demonstration of effectiveness through rigorous evaluations, the model could reduce recidivism at the local level while spreading proven approaches more widely. This impact-focused, action research orientation for criminal justice education represents an ideal opportunity to directly improve lives and communities through applying knowledge towards solving one of the field’s greatest challenges.