Study Details | Pathways to Work

8090-Minnesota Department

Study quality: Low

Low

Reason for the rating: This study received a low study quality rating because it is a quasi-experimental design that does not adjust estimated impacts for potentially important differences between the intervention and comparison groups.

Intervention: Minnesota’s Work Release Program—Minnesota Department of Corrections

Population and employment barriers:

Specific employment barriers (Former incarceration, Justice system involvement)

Services provided:

Sanctions, Work and work-based learning (Work experience)

Setting: Tested in multiple settings

Study design

Design:

Quasi-experimental design

Study group formation:

In Minnesota, people who were incarcerated could participate in a work release program if they had served at least half of their prison sentence and were within eight months of their release date. To participate in work release, individuals were assessed for low recidivism risk based on their criminal history, prison behavioral history, or their score on the Level of Service Inventory–Revised instrument. People who were incarcerated could apply for the work release program when they were within one year of their supervised release date. Minnesota Department of Corrections staff then screened the applications and approved applicants for work release. The study authors used propensity score matching to create the intervention and comparison groups. The authors matched 1,785 individuals who (1) were released from Minnesota prisons between January 2007 and December 2010 and (2) participated in Minnesota's work release program to 1,785 individuals (from a larger pool of 6,841 nonparticipants) released during the same time period who did not participate in the work release program. Matching and analysis was completed at the individual level.

Time period of study:

Offenders included in the study were released between January 2007 and December 2010, and follow-up data were collected until December 31, 2012. The follow-up period ranged from two to six years.

Pathways only reports results from studies with a study quality rating of high or moderate.

Sample characteristics

The study authors did not provide sample characteristics.

Specific employment barriers

Were involved with the justice system	100%
Were formerly incarcerated	100%

Intervention implementation

Implementing organization:

Minnesota Department of Corrections

Intervention services:

The goal of Minnesota's work release program, operated by the Minnesota Department of Corrections, was to help low-risk people who were incarcerated transition from prison to the community. Through this program, people who were incarcerated were released early and transferred from a state facility to a county jail or community corrections residential facility. Work release participants had to obtain employment, and they were referred to programs in the community that help formerly incarcerated people develop job-search skills if they had difficulty finding work. During work release, participants had to use a portion of their income to pay for some of their work release housing costs and court-ordered restitution.

Mandatory services:

None

Comparison services:

People in the comparison condition were people who were incarcerated and were eligible for Minnesota's work release program but did not participate. They received typical services available to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.

Study publications

Duwe, Grant (2015). An outcome evaluation of a prison work release program, Criminal Justice Policy Review 26(6): 531-554. Available at https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/outcome-evaluation-prison-work-release-program-estimating-its

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Study of Minnesota Department of Corrections Work Release Program