FEMALE FELON

The Barriers, Boundaries and Struggle of a Female Felon

[Hunter School of Social Work]

The Barriers, Boundaries and Struggle of a Female Felon

Introduction

The purpose of this discussion piece is to highlight issues surrounding work programs in prison for recidivism. While these issues are inevitably somewhat complex, the programs themselves are fairly straightforward. The programs fit into three main categories: jobs in the prison setting, short term vocational training in prison, and short term assistance in the job search process upon release. There are also some examples of programs which cut across categories, most often providing training inside prison along with job search assistance outside of prison. The short answer to the question of whether any of these will reduce recidivism is “MAYBE.”

This paper will not endeavor to review all the programs because Wilson et al. (2001) recently completed an excellent comprehensive meta-analysis of 53 experimental or quasi-experimental treatment-control comparisons based on 33 evaluations of prison education, vocation and work programs. This list includes 19 studies conducted during the 1990's and includes all of the evaluations included in a broader review of labor market programs (Bushway and Reuter 2002). Based on their meta-analysis, Wilson and colleagues find that participants in the work programs are less likely to recidivate than those who do not participate in a treatment program. The average effect is substantial. If we assume that the non-participants have a recidivism rate of 50%, the program participants have a recidivism rate of 39%, a reduction of more than 20%. The effects of work programs and training programs are roughly equivalent.

The Review of the Related Literature

In support of the claim that work contributes to recidivism, program participants were substantially more likely to be employed than non-participants in studies with that information, and the studies with the largest employment effect tended to also have the largest reduction in recidivism. Wilson and colleagues however, include a strong caveat to these findings—these results are based on studies that are extremely methodologically weak. Only three studies used an experimental design and only one of the non-experimental studies, Saylor and Gaes (1996) used what Wilson et al. (2001) considered to be strong statistical controls for selection bias between the participants and non-participants. Perhaps the 20% difference between participants and nonparticipants is driven by pre-existing differences between the two groups that are independent of the work program. None of the experiments find a significant effect, although Saylor and Gaes do find a significant effect of a reasonable magnitude.

If we were to limit this paper to what is known from these evaluations, we would have to stop here and conclude rather unhelpfully that more research is needed. Yet, we know a lot more about work and the ability of work programs to change behavior than what we know from prisons—there is a very large literature on work programs for unemployed people in the community, including youth and welfare recipients. There is also a growing criminological literature on what factors might be associated with desistance from ...