Abstract
Objectives
We present findings from an evaluation of a large work release program in the Israeli Prison Service. The Israeli program uses an integrative therapeutic approach which combines work release with a series of other program elements. Our main question is whether this integration of multiple program elements leads to strong benefits in terms of reincarceration and re-arrests.
Methods
The study uses a rich administrative database to develop a propensity score matching approach for creating matched treatment (n = 547) and control (n = 547) subjects. The prisoners in the groups are found to be similar on known characteristics after matching. MHbounds methods are used to assess the sensitivity of the results to bias.
Results
Average standardized effect sizes in our study vary between .17 and .31. In general, rehabilitation outcomes observed are much larger than those reported for US evaluations of work release programs.
Conclusions
Work release in Israel is not simply work release, but involves a positive social environment, a high dosage of counseling and therapy, and more general privileges for inmates including furloughs and cultural activities. We argue that our findings suggest the importance of a broader more integrative approach to work release programs to achieve enhanced success in reducing recidivism.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
We do not include the work release program in Delaware in our review because the focus was specifically on drug offending (see Martin et al. 1999).
Cost benefit outcomes are complex and can provide different conclusions even from evaluations of the same program. For example, two evaluations of Washington’s work release program evaluated the effects of these programs on correctional costs (Drake 2007; Turner and Petersilia 1996). The latter found that, in general, the program did not reduce costs, mostly due to a high proportion of drop outs (about a third). In contrast, Drake (2007) noted that the Washington work release program brought a cost avoidance benefit of nearly $1700 per participant.
The majority of immigrants to Israel are received under this law, though there is also citizenship through naturalization and family reunification. We only have data on immigrants who came to Israel under the law of return.
An alternative approach commonly used is to simply predict recidivism controlling for the impacts of potential confounding factors. In this approach, if a variable is excluded and it is related to the variable of interest (in this case the treatment), the estimate of the variable of interest would be biased. In the PSM approach, the researcher is not directly estimating the variable of interest, but rather calculating the propensity score. Accordingly, even if variables are excluded, where they are strongly correlated with variables in the PSM model, the bias in the propensity score will be reduced.
References
Aakvik, A. (2001). Bounding a matching estimator: the case of A Norwegian training program. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 63(1), 115–143.
Allen, H. E., & Simonsen, C. E. (1995). Corrections in America: an introduction (7th ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Bales, W. D., & Mears, D. P. (2008). Inmate social ties and the transition to society: does visitation reduce recidivism? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 45(3), 287–321.
Bales, W. D., Clark, C., Scaggs, S., Ensley, D., Coltharp, P., Singer, A., & Blomberg, T. G. (2016). An assessment of the effectiveness of prison work release programs on post-release recidivism and employment.
Bandura, A. (1991). Self-regulation of motivation through anticipatory and self-regulation mechanisms. In R. A. Dienstbier (Ed.), Perspectives on motivation: Nebraska symposium on motivation (Vol. 38, pp. 69–164). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Berk, J. (2007). Does work release work? unpublished manuscript. Providence: Brown University.
Boruch, R. (2007). The null hypothesis is not called that for nothing: statistical tests in randomized trials. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 3(1), 1–20.
Bouffard, J. A., MacKenzie, D. L., & Hickman, L. J. (2000). Effectiveness of vocational education and employment programs for adult offenders: a methodology-based analysis of the literature. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 31(1-2), 1–41.
Bucklen, K., & Zajac, G. (2009). But some of them don’t come back (to prison!): resource deprivation and thinking errors as determinants of parole success and failure. The Prison Journal, 89, 239–264.
Bushway, S. (2003). Reentry and prison work programs. Prepared for the urban institute roundtable on employment dimensions of reentry.
Bushway, S. D., & Apel, R. (2012). A signaling perspective on employment-based reentry programming: training completion as a desistance signal. Criminology and Public Policy, 11(1), 21–50.
Caliendo, M., & Kopeinig, S. (2005). Some practical guidance for the implementation of propensity score matching. IZA Discussion Paper No. 1588. Bonn: The Institute for the Study of Labor.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale: Lawrence Earlbaum.
Davidesco, I., & Wolk, D. (2011). Prisoner employment as a rehabilitation tool. IPS research unit, publication no. LR-01-2011 (Hebrew).
Davis, C., Bahr, S. J., & Ward, C. (2012). The process of offender reintegration: perceptions of what helps prisoners reenter society. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 13(4), 446–469.
Davis, L. M., Bozick, R., Steele, J. L., Saunders, J., & Miles, J. N. (2013). Evaluating the effectiveness of correctional education: a meta-analysis of programs that provide education to incarcerated adults. Santa Monice: Rand.
Davis, L. M., Steele, J. L., Bozick, R., Williams, M. V., Turner, S., Miles, J. N., … & Steinberg, P. S. (2014). How effective is correctional education, and where do we go from here? The results of a comprehensive evaluation. Santa Monica: Rand.
Day, A., Howells, K., Casey, S., Ward, T., Chambers, J. C., & Birgden, A. (2009). Assessing treatment readiness in violent offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24(4), 618–635.
Doeren, S. E., & Hageman, M. J. (1982). Community corrections. Cincinnati: Anderson.
Drake, E. (2007). Does participation in Washington’s work release facilities reduce recidivism? (Document No. 07-11-1201). Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.
Duwe, G. (2015). An outcome evaluation of a prison work release program estimating its effects on recidivism, employment, and cost avoidance. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 26(6), 531–554.
Duwe, G., & Clark, V. (2014). The effects of prison-based educational programming on recidivism and employment. The Prison Journal, 94(4), 454–478.
Elisha, E., Shoham, E., Hasisi, B., & Weisburd, D. (in press). For prisoners ‘work works’: qualitative findings from an Israeli program. The Prison Journal.
Gendreau, P., Little, T., & Goggin, C. (1996). A meta‐analysis of the predictors of adult offender recidivism: what works! Criminology, 34(4), 575–608.
Gillis, C. A., & Nafekh, M. (2005). The impact of community-based employment on offender reintegration. Forum on Corrections Research, 16(2), 10–14.
Grupp, S. E. (1963). Work release in the United States. Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, 54(3), 267–272.
Grupp, S. E. (1965). Work release and the misdemeanant. Federal Probation, 29, 6–12.
Hasisi, B., Shoham, E., Weisburd, D., Haviv, N., & Zelig, A. (2016). The “care package”, prison domestic violence programs and recidivism: a quasi-experimental study. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 12(4), 563–586.
Howells, K., & Day, A. (1999). The rehabilitation of offenders: International perspectives applied to Australian correctional systems (Vol. 112). Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.
Hunter, G., & Boyce, I. (2009). Preparing for employment: prisoners experience of participating in a prison training program. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 48(2), 117–131.
IBM Corp. (Released 2011). IBM SPSS statistics for windows, version 20.0. Armonk, NY: IBM.
Jeffery, R., & Woolpert, S. (1974). Work furlough as an alternative to incarceration: an assessment of its effects on recidivism and social cost. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 65, 404–415.
Jordan, K. L. (2012). Juvenile transfer and recidivism: a propensity score matching approach. Journal of Crime and Justice, 35(1), 53–67.
Jung, H. (2014). Do prison work-release programs improve subsequent labor market outcomes? evidence from the adult transition centers in Illinois. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 53(5), 384–402.
Kaplansky, A. (2007). Running a professional training program for prisoners in the IPS. A Window Into Prison, 11, 92–98 (Hebrew).
Katz, J. F., & Decker, S. H. (1982). An analysis of work release: the institutionalization of unsubstantiated reforms. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 9, 229–250.
Kim, R. H., & Clark, D. (2013). The effect of prison-based college education programs on recidivism: propensity score matching approach. Journal of Criminal Justice, 41(3), 196–204.
Kirk, D. S., & Hardy, M. (2014). The acute and enduring consequences of exposure to violence on youth mental health and aggression. Justice Quarterly, 31(3), 539–567.
Kumar, S., & Vollmer, S. (2012). Does improved sanitation reduce diarrhea in children in rural India? (No. 107). Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth-Discussion Papers.
Lamb, H. R., & Goertzel, V. (1974). Ellsworth house: a community alternative to jail. American Journal of Psychiatry, 131(1), 64–68.
Langan, P. A., & Levin, D. J. (2002). Recidivism of prisoners released in 1994. Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice.
LeBel, T., Burnett, R., Maruna, S., & Bushway, S. D. (2008). The “chicken and egg” of subjective and social factors in desistance from crime. European Journal of Criminology, 5, 131–159.
LeClair, D. P., & Guarino-Ghezzi, S. (1991). Does incapacitation guarantee public safety? Lessons from the Massachusetts furlough and prerelease programs. Justice Quarterly 8, 1–40.
Lee, B. R., & Thompson, R. (2008). Comparing outcomes for youth in treatment foster care and family-style group care. Children and Youth Services Review, 30(7), 746–757.
Lipsey, M. (2000). Statistical conclusion validity for intervention research: a significant (p < .05) problem. In L. Bickman (Ed.), Validity and social experimentation: Donald Campbell’s legacy (pp. 101–120). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Long, E. V. (1965). The prisoner rehabilitation act of 1965. Federal Probation, 29, 3–7.
Loughran, T. A., Wilson, T., Nagin, D. S., & Piquero, A. R. (2015). Evolutionary regression? assessing the problem of hidden biases in criminal justice applications using propensity scores. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 11(4), 631–652.
Lowenkamp, C. T., & Latessa, E. J. (2004). Understanding the risk principle: How and why correctional interventions can harm low-risk offenders. Topics in Community Corrections, 2004, 3–8.
MacKenzie, D. L. (2006). What works in corrections: reducing the criminal activities of offenders and deliquents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maguire, K. (1996). Prison industry programs and inmate institutional behavior. Forum on Corrections Research, 8(1), 39.
Mantel, N., & Haenszel, W. (1959). Statistical aspects of the analysis of data from retrospective studies of disease. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 22(4), 719–748.
Martin, S. S., Butzin, C. A., Saum, C. A., & Inciardi, J. A. (1999). Three-year outcomes of therapeutic community treatment for drug-involved offenders in Delaware: from prison to work release to aftercare. The Prison Journal, 79(3), 294–320.
McGonigle, I. V., & Herman, L. W. (2015). Genetic citizenship: DNA testing and the Israeli Law of return. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 2(2), 468–479.
Mizrahi, S., & Tal, A. (2010). Prisoner rehabilitation programs – background and comparative review. Jerusalem: Knesset Research and Information Center (Hebrew).
Morgan, R. D., & Flora, D. B. (2002). Group psychotherapy with incarcerated offenders: a research synthesis. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 6(3), 203.
Morgan, R. D., Winterowd, C. L., & Fuqua, D. R. (1999). The efficacy of an integrated theoretical approach to group psychotherapy for male inmates. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 29, 203–222.
Ramakers, A., Apel, R., Nieuwbeerta, P., Dirkzwager, A., & Wilsem, J. (2014). Imprisonment length and post-prison employment prospects. Criminology, 52(3), 399–427.
Rhodes, J. (2008). Ex-o enders’ social ties and the routes into employment. Internet Journal of Criminology. Retrieved from Http://www.InternetJournalofCriminology.com/Rhodes%20-%20Ex-offenders%20and%20Employment.pdf
Rosenbaum, P. R. (2002), Observational studies, 2nd edn. New York: Springer.
Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70(1), 41–55.
Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1984). Reducing bias in observational studies using subclassification on the propensity score. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 79, 516–524.
Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1985). Constructing a control group using multivariate matched sampling methods that incorporate the propensity score. The American Statistician, 39(1), 33–38.
Rosenbaum, D. P., Lawrence, D. S., Hartnett, S. M., McDevitt, J., & Posick, C. (2015). Measuring procedural justice and legitimacy at the local level: the police–community interaction survey. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 1–32.
Ross, M. W., Diamond, P. M., Liebling, A., & Saylor, W. G. (2008). Measurement of prison social climate A comparison of an inmate measure in England and the USA. Punishment & Society, 10(4), 447–474.
Ruddell, R., & Winfree, T. (2006). Setting aside criminal convictions in Canada: a successful approach to offender reintegration. The Prison Journal, 86, 17.
Rudoff, A., & Esselstyn, T. C. (1973). Evaluating work furlough: a followup. Federal Probation, 37, 48.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1993). Crime in the making: pathways and turning points through life. Cambridge: Harvard University.
Schwarze, S., Erasmi, S., Priess, J. A., & Zeller, M. (2009). Do national parks reduce deforestation? The effectiveness of the Lore-Lindu National Park in Indonesia. STORMA Discussion Paper Series, Sub-program A on Social and Economic Dynamics in Rain Forest Margins, Göttingen and Bogor.
Secrest, L., White, S. O., & Crown, E. D. (Eds.). (1979). The rehabilitation of criminal offenders: problems and prospects. Washington: National Academy of Sciences.
Shadish, W. R. (2013). Propensity score analysis: promise, reality and irrational exuberance. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 9(2), 129–144.
Shadish, W., Cook, T., & Campbell, D. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for general causal inference. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
Singer, N. M. (1973). Incentives and the use of prison labor. Crime & Delinquency, 19(2), 200–211.
Smith, C. J., Bechtel, J., Patrick, A., Smith, R. R., & Wilson-Gentry, L. (2006). Correctional industries preparing inmates for re-entry: recidivism & post-release employment. Washington DC: US Department of Justice.
Social Exclusion Unit. (2002). Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners. London: Social Exclusion Unit.
Solomon, A., Johnson, K., Travis, J., & McBride, E. (2004). From prison to work: the employment dimensions of prisoner reentry. Washington: The Urban Institute.
Stephan, J. J. (2008). Census of state and federal correctional facilities, 2005. Washington: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Turner, S., & Petersilia, J. (1996). Work release in Washington: effects on recidivism and corrections costs. The Prison Journal, 76(2), 138–164.
Tyler, T. R. (2007). Psychology and the design of legal institutions. Nijmegen: Wolf Legal.
Tyler, T. R. (2010). Legitimacy in corrections. Criminology & Public Policy, 9(1), 127–134.
Vacca, J. (2004). Educated prisoners are less likely to return to prison. Journal of Correctional Education, 55(4), 297–305.
Waldo, G. P., & Chiricos, T. G. (1977). Work releases and recidivism: an empirical evaluation of a social policy. Evaluation Quarterly, 1(1), 87–108.
Warr, M. (1998). Life-course transitions and desistance from crime. Criminology, 36, 183–216.
Washington State Institute for Public Policy. (2015). Does participation in Washington’s work release facilities reduce crime. Retrieved from: http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/ReportFile/998/Wsipp_Does-Participation-in-Washingtons-Work-Release-Facilities-Reduce-Recidivism_Full-Report.pdf
Weisburd, D. (2010). Justifying the use of Non-experimental methods and disqualifying the use of randomized controlled trials: challenging folklore in evaluation research in crime and justice. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 6, 209–227.
Wilson, D. B., Gallagher, C. A., & MacKenzie, D. L. (2000). A meta-analysis of corrections-based education, vocation, and work programs for adult offenders. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 37, 347–368.
Witte, A. D. (1977). Work release in North Carolina. A program that works! Law and Contemporary Problems, 41(1), 230–251.
Witte, A. D., & Bachman, J. (1975). Work release in North Carolina: an evaluation of its port-release effects. institute for research in social science. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
In the original version of this article, some errors were retained in copy-editing. These errors have been corrected herein.
An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11292-017-9291-5.
Appendices
Appendices
Appendix A: list of variables for psm analysis
-
Socio-demographic data
-
Age of entry into program/age at potential entry into program (for comparison group)
-
New Immigrant (yes/no)
-
Marital status (married/not married)
-
Number of children
-
Nationality (Jewish/non-Jewish)
-
Reported years of education
-
-
Criminal background
-
Incarceration history (number of incarcerations)
-
Calculated age at first incarceration
-
-
Current Offense
-
Offenses:
-
Violent offense (yes/no)
-
Drug offense (yes/no)
-
Property offense (yes/no)
-
Sexual offense (yes/no)
-
-
Calculated length of imprisonment (release date minus date of imprisonment)
-
Year of release
-
-
Prisoner profile (yes/no)
-
Criminal violence
-
Domestic violence
-
Chronically ill
-
-
Prison experience - data on prisoner during incarceration (until entry into rehabilitation/last potential date for entering rehabilitation)
-
Employment:
-
Number of standardized workdays in contract work
-
Number of standardized workdays in factories (productive factories)
-
-
Education:
-
Standardized number of formal courses before program entry
-
Standardized number of informal courses before program entry
-
-
Disciplinary hearings:
-
Standardized number of hearings before program entry
-
Standardized number of hearings that resulted in isolation, before program entry
-
Time between date of last hearing and entry into program
-
-
Professional training courses:
-
Standardized number of professional training courses before program entry
-
Standardized number of non-professional training courses before program entry
-
-
Privileges:
-
Standardized number of privileges revoked before program entry
-
Time between date of last revocation and program entry
-
-
Furloughs:
-
Standardized number of furloughs before program entry
-
-
Appendix B: encoding the release committees
At first, before encoding the relevant variable “treatment”, we went over some 100 release committee files from beginning to end to check for mentions of previous treatment given to the prisoner. This included marking relevant words that indicated the existence of the variable “treatment” at any point throughout the incarceration. Given the number of release committees, an algorithm was written to enable quick and easy detection of the variable. The algorithm uses predetermined relevant words and checks them against all the committee files.
The relevant words included in the algorithm: “MAGASH” (Hebrew acronym for “rehabilitation center”), project, division.
The file contained 5404 committees relating to 3523 prisoners (some prisoners appeared before two or more committees). These prisoners include all participants in the group rehabilitation project and all potential prisoners for the comparison group. Of these, 185 participated in a rehabilitation center program, 260 took part in the project, and 431 were on a therapy ward. In total, 780 prisoners were treated. To rule out algorithm search errors, all committees in which one of the relevant words was detected were examined. For instance, if the word “division” appeared but in fact referred to something else, such as the welfare division, the encoding was changed and the committee was removed from the file.
The final stage consisted of checking this variable in the two groups created by propensity score matching: 547 rehabilitation prisoners and 547 comparison group prisoners.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Weisburd, D., Hasisi, B., Shoham, E. et al. Reinforcing the impacts of work release on prisoner recidivism: the importance of integrative interventions. J Exp Criminol 13, 241–264 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-017-9285-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-017-9285-3