The Effects of Postsecondary Correctional Education

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Abstract

Increasing educational proficiency has shown promise as one strategy for assisting inmates in finding gainful employment after release and ending their involvement with the criminal justice system. This report examines the effect of prison-based postsecondary education (PSE) on offenders both while incarcerated and after release. In three states, prisoners who participated in PSE were less likely to recidivate during the first year after release.

Executive Summary

Over the last several decades the U.S. prison population has grown at an unprecedented rate. As this population has grown so has the interest of practitioners, policy makers, and researchers in better understanding how to prepare returning inmates for release into the community. Previous research has found that individuals who are employed after their release are less likely to recidivate (Baer et al. 2006). Increasing educational proficiency has shown promise as one strategy for assisting inmates in finding gainful employment after release and ending their involvement with the criminal justice system. The research presented in this report examines the effect of prison-based postsecondary education (PSE) on offenders both while incarcerated and after release.

Urban Institute researchers worked with the staff of four institutions in three states to conduct inmate focus groups and stakeholder interviews to explore the motivations for enrolling in PSE, the impact of PSE on offenders while incarcerated, and the expected benefits after release. A quantitative outcome evaluation was also conducted using data on PSE participants and nonparticipants drawn from three states.

Inmates and other stakeholders were enthusiastic about PSE programs offered at each of the four facilitates visited by the researchers. A consistent theme across respondents and locations was that PSE has a positive impact on inmate behavior and that participating in PSE increases feelings of self-esteem. Inmates typically believed that participation in PSE would increase their employment prospects after release; however, many saw further education beyond that received in prison as necessary to reach their employment goals. Inmates reported a number of challenges to engaging in prison-based PSE; among them, the availability of quiet space to study, access to electronic resources, and lack of cooperation by correctional staff.

The analysis of postrelease recidivism yielded evidence of a consistently negative association between PSE participation and recidivism. In each of the three states, prisoners who participated in PSE were less likely to recidivate during the first year after release. The magnitude of the effect size estimates reached both substantive and statistical significance. While these findings are encouraging, they should be viewed as promising, but not conclusive, evidence of the potential of correctional PSE to improve postrelease outcomes for prisoners. Three caveats are especially salient. First, this study relied exclusively on observational data. The prisoners in the study chose to participate in PSE or not; they were not randomly assigned to the treatment and comparison conditions. Although we applied sophisticated statistical techniques in an attempt to adjust for the self selection, no amount of statistical adjustment is a perfect substitute for strong study design. Second, we were missing data on key measures for large numbers of research subjects in each state. We also made statistical adjustments to correct for the missing data problem. Third, we had no institutional level information about program type, structure, delivery of PSE in any of the three states.

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