Labor Topics

• Measuring Program Performance
• Finding Out What Works
• Using Vouchers to Deliver Services
• Helping Service Members
• Self-Employment as an Alternative Strategy
• Moving Young People into Productive Careers
• Encouraging Employment for Ex-Offenders
• Addressing Unique Problems of Experienced Workers
• Assisting DOL and Grantees
• Clients

Evaluation of the Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative: Helping Ex-Offenders Back into the Community

More than 600,000 inmates are released each year from U.S. jails and prisons. These ex-offenders often struggle to reintegrate into the community, grappling with problems such as substance abuse; mental health issues; low education and literacy levels; and lack of family ties, stable housing, and job skills. Given these barriers, it is not surprising that most ex-offenders return to criminal activity shortly after their release.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Employment and Training Administration, along with several federal partners, sought to address this pressing national issue through the Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative (PRI), launched in fall 2005. DOL awarded 30 grants to faith-based and community-based organizations across the nation to provide employment services, mentoring, and housing assistance to ex-offenders transitioning back to the community. The grantees were expected to enroll 400 returning offenders during the initial two years of the grant.

Mathematica partnered with Coffey Consulting to evaluate grantees’ progress in the first two years of PRI. Mathematica’s analysis focused on patterns of participation, short-term outcomes, and an in-depth cost analysis. We conducted one round of site visits to a subset of nine programs to collect detailed cost information and analyzed data on participant characteristics, service use, and outcomes from a project-specific management information system.

Findings

Grantees made progress toward placing participants in employment, with two-thirds placed in unsubsidized employment at an average hourly wage of $9.29. In addition, recidivism rates across all grantees appeared low. Certain subgroups of participants, including women, older participants, non-Black participants, those with at least a high school diploma or GED at the time of their enrollment, those released from federal institutions, and those who served longer terms in prison or jail, had more success than their counterparts on a range of employment and recidivism outcomes. Through the cost analysis, we found that the program cost less per participant than expected given the short average length of participation. In addition to grant resources, grantees also garnered substantial donated, in-kind, and volunteer resources, supplementing their grant funding by an additional 25 percent.

Publications

"Evaluation of the Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative" (January 2009)