Employment Initiatives
For
Offenders
Gerald Melnick, Ph.D.
National Development and Research Institutes, Inc
High Rates of Recidivism
More than 650,000 prisoners are released each year
About two-thirds return to jail or prison within two to
three years (Prisoner Reentry Institute, 2006; U.S. Dept. of Justice,
2007).
Unemployment > Recidivism
 A primary cause of this high rate of recidivism is
unemployment. (Andrews 1995; Gendreau et al 1998; Petersilia,
2005)
 Without employment, ex-convicts are three to five times
more likely to commit a crime than are those who gain
employment after leaving prison (Jackson,1990)
The Cards are Stacked
Ex-felons frequently face barriers to finding
permanent, unsubsidized employment.
Lack occupational skills,
Little experience seeking employment
 Employers who are uneasy about hiring
offenders
State and Federal laws bar them from some
occupations (Finn 1999; Sonfield, 2008).
The Opportunities Limited
As a result, ex-felons are often relegated to low-level
jobs, which not only do not pay well and offer little
hope for future advancement.
Ex-felons engaged in such dead-end jobs have a smaller
stake in the conformity and are more likely to engage in
criminal activity (Crutchfield, 1997).
The Desire is There
 Offenders identify employment services as an integral part of
their improved overall functioning (Kemp 2004) and in maintaining a
crime free existence (Visher et al.,2006)
 78% of the offenders enrolled in a vocational services program
completed the program
 134/245 (55%) of those were able to obtain employment (Kemp,
2004)
Employment as Reinforcement
Among Substance Abusers
 Contingency (employment in therapeutic workplace)
participants accepted significantly more naltrexone
injections than prescription participants (87% versus
52%, p=.002), and
 They were more likely to accept all injections (74%
versus 26%. (DeFulio A,, 2012)
Substance Abuse Treatment and
Employment
 Overall, engagement in SAT was not significant for
employment outcomes.
 However, for clients with prior criminal justice
involvement, engagement was associated with
both employment and higher wages
following treatment. (Dunigan, 2013).
Beginning to Meet the Challenge
The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) has
developed competency-based specialist training
programs built on CBT and MI techniques in three
critical areas:
 Offender Employment Specialist
 Offender Employment Retention Specialist
 Offender Workforce Development Specialist
Therapeutic Workplace
– mixed results
 Participants in two clinical trials attended the
therapeutic workplace at higher rates during the
program than they worked before intake or 6 months
after discharge from the program.
 These data suggest that unemployed chronic drug
misusers will attend work at higher rates at the
therapeutic workplace than in the community
(Sigurdsson , 2011)
Practical Skills Training
 Skills training was provided for completing job
application forms, job searching, and job
interviews.
 The training process included instruction, modeling,
role-playing and feedback.
 Improvements were demonstrated across all skills
and generalized to real community settings (Taylor, 2011)
Job Seekers Workshop-Skills
Approach
 Sequence of 3 weekly sessions that focused on
job interview rehearsals, practice
completing job applications, and identification
of job leads showed modest pre-post gains. (Hamdi,,2011)
 No gains in a study of American Indians (Foley,
2010).
Web-based Training
Preliminary data on the Web-based intervention
suggest that it should be able to teach adults with
histories of chronic unemployment and drug addiction
to become skilled data entry operators in about 3 to 6
months (Silverman, 2005).
The Problem Being: What Kind of Jobs?
Comprehensive Programs
 Assessment,
 Job matching
 Job training,
 Job Placement,
 Support services (coaching and continued support)
Examples
 Ready4work
 The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO)
(includes paid transitional work)
Entrepreneurship Training
The Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College
published “Venturing Beyond the Gates” concluding
that entrepreneurship training is a viable path to
economic self-sufficiency.
Entrepreneurship training as not
something different from treatment.
The integration of entrepreneurship into substance
abuse treatment provides the education, training, and
resources to enter the job market, and can help support
treatment centers and provide job experience (Sonfield,
2008)
Examples of Entrepreneurial
Programs
The Delancey Street Foundation
(http://www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/enterprises.php)
teaches social entrepreneurial skills to its residents.
 Created 12 successful enterprises that have generated
revenue to support about 60% of its budget
 Taught marketable skills that include manual skills, clerical
and computer skills, and interpersonal, and sales skills.
Examples of Entrepreneurial
Programs
Homeboy Industries
(http://www.homeboyindustries.org/)
 They operate seven social enterprises that serve as
job-training sites: cafe, farmers markets, diner,
merchandise, grocery, bakery, and embroidery.
 Provide employment services, education, case
management, legal and medical services.
Examples of Entrepreneurial
Programs
The Triangle Residential Options for Substance
Abusers (TROSA) (http://www.trosainc.org/) is a multiyear residential treatment program
 Teaches marketable job skills in customer service,
computer, and phone skills and specific hard skills to
help its residents gain employment on re-entry to the
community.
Examples of Entrepreneurial
Programs
Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP)
(http://www.prisonentrepreneurship.org)
Defy Ventures (http://defyventures.org)
 Links business and academics with program
participants through an MBA-level class and mentor
relationships.
Examples of Entrepreneurial
Programs
The Amity Foundation’s new Center for Social
Entrepreneurship (ACSE)
 Brings together the life skills from the therapeutic
community and the hard job skills from
entrepreneurial and vocational training in 3
businesses to facilitate successful reentry.