Prison Work-Release Programs and Incarcerated Women’s Labor Market Outcomes

This article examines whether the work-release program in Illinois prisons increases women’s earnings and employment. Using a large matched adminis-trative database, we find that a longer time served in an Adult Transition Center (ATC) increases total earnings and the probability of being employed during the time in an ATC, for both ATC parolees and dropouts. Furthermore, ATC parolees and dropouts with a longer stay in an ATC had sizable increases in their earnings and employment rates after incarceration. However, the incompletion of the ATC terms by ATC dropouts seemed to carry stigma that reduces their post-incarceration earnings or employment rates.

Does electronic monitoring as a means of release preparation reduce subsequent recidivism? A randomized controlled trial in Germany

This study analyses the recidivism-reducing effect of electronic monitoring (EM) in the context of early work release and home detention as a means of release preparation. We tested the hypothesis that EM reduces recidivism after the termination of EM. The results are based on a randomized controlled trial in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where a pilot project between 2010 and 2012 enabled different forms of EM. The participating prisoners were randomly assigned either to the experimental group under EM or to the control group, whose participants had to continue their regular sentence behind prison walls. Qualitative data and data of a matched-pair sample complement the analyses. There was no statistical significant difference between the recidivism rates of the EM and control group subjects.

Financial Literacy Education in a Work Release Program for an Incarcerated Sample

We obtained 180 pre- and post-test surveys to investigate how an established financial literacy program may have increased financial knowledge of residents in a work release program in Augusta, Georgia. Paired t tests analyzed changes in subjective and objective financial knowledge, understanding of banking and credit, and financial attitudes. OLS regressions of pre- and post-test financial knowledge were guided by human capital theory to learn which program participant characteristics were associated with greater increase in knowledge and infer why. Education, age, and use of financial tools were significant predictors in the pretest. Controlling for pretest knowledge, there were significant, positive differences from pre- to post-test, regardless of race. Implications for further research and specific suggestions for financial education content for the incarcerated are provided.

Custodialism Reborn

By the end of the 1960s, anti-institutionalism had extended beyond mental health and bled into prison reform. This chapter tracks the rise and fall of efforts to find alternatives to prisons. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, changes in psychiatry, politics, and the law led to a deinstitutionalization in both mental health and corrections policy making. Not only did politicians and advocates look for alternatives to mental hospitals, they also sought alternatives to prisons. They expanded probation, parole, and furlough and created community corrections initiatives such as halfway houses and work-release programs. The number of people in prisons and jails fell, even during a time of increased policing. These reforms came under attack, however, as politicians depicted people in prison as dangerous criminals and ushered in harsh sentencing reforms. A law and order politics that relied on racial discrimination halted efforts to deinstitutionalize prisons. By the mid-1970s, after more than a decade of decline, new prison construction began and the number of imprisoned people nationwide rose. These changes had a devastating effect on individuals with mental health conditions. Many of them were caught in the web of this new era of mass incarceration.