An Experimental Evaluation of a Comprehensive Employment-Oriented Prisoner Re-entry Program

Breaking Down Barriers: Experiments into Policies That Might Incentivize Employers to Hire Ex-Offenders

“…Indeed, arguments in favor of developing policies and training programs to improve labor market outcomes for ex-offenders often derive from the intuition that gainful employment will help previously incarcerated individuals avoid future arrest and incarceration. Evaluations of job training and transitional jobs programs for criminal offenders have generally found little to no impact on recidivism (Wilson, Gallagher, and MacKenzie, 2000;Visher, Winterfield, and Coggeshall, 2005;Redcross et al, 2012;Cook et al, 2015;Wiegand et al, 2015), though the level of employment or earnings improvement provided by these programs may have been insufficient to produce substantial effects on recidivism outcomes (for an excellent discussion, see Lattimore, Steffey, and Visher, 2010).…”

Do post-prison job opportunities reduce recidivism?

“…These transitional jobs can be generally characterized as providing temporary minimum wage employment to help offenders reintegrate into society and the local labor market. But, even the most successful program participants in the recent Milwaukee evaluation were not earning enough to lift a household above the poverty line [11]. In light of the evidence previously discussed concerning the relationship between labor market conditions and recidivism, these programs may thus not have a significant impact on recidivism due to the low quality of the employment opportunities provided.…”

“…Using the "gold standard" of program evaluation, RCTs, researchers find that employment-focused re-entry programs increase employment but, in general, do not appear to have a large or consistent impact on recidivism (see Table 1 in [11] for a summary of notable RCT evaluations). These results are surprising given the frequent attribution of re-entry failure to an inability to find work.…”

“…Moreover, assistance delivered after an offender's transition back into the community may not be as effective as services provided prior to release. To test this hypothesis, a recent RCT evaluation combines a wide range of services coordinated by a social worker prior to release with a post-release employment program for ex-prisoners in Milwaukee, Wisconsin [11]. This study finds a large impact on employment but, again, little impact on recidivism [11].…”

“…As discussed in a study from 2015, it is now important to evaluate the impact of "a bigger 'dose' of legitimate opportunity" given the disappointing recidivism rates to date [11]. An important question for policymakers thus arises: How can society increase the quantity and quality of legitimate work opportunities for released prisoners?…”