BeWirkt – Impact evaluation of the Austrian probation service

Probation support helps people who have committed an offence to come to terms with their crime they have committed and to avoid reoffending (‘recidivism’). Additionaly, probation services aim to empower clients and facilitate constructive changes in various areas of their lives. This project aimed to investigate the effects of probation services on clients’ living conditions, such as their educational, family, income and housing situations, as well as their state of health and the development of their pro-social attitudes and skills, and to analyse the interaction of these factors with recidivism.

The IKF (Institute of Conflict Research), together with the IRKS (Department of Applied Sociology of Law and Criminology, the project coordinator), and NEUSTART, an association for probation services, developed a complex study design for this project. First the impact goals of probation services were identified. Then, the corresponding impact indicators were operationalised to develop a questionnaire for a survey of more than 400 clients. Additionally, the probation officers were asked about their working methods, and knowledge from the NEUSTART documentation was incorporated into the evaluation.

This multi-perspective study design analysed factors such as probation support methods, course, duration, and intensity in terms of their effect on the clients. In the evaluation, a comparison group design was used, in which different sub-samples were compared with each other in order to generate insights into causal relationships. Regression analysis models were used to identify impact factors and to test hypotheses about correlations. Finally, qualitative interview insights were combined with quantitative data. Evidence-based recommendations for optimising probation services were developed from these findings in collaboration with NEUSTART. These recommendations will be used in both practice and academic discourse.