About the Report The Report, Part II: Review of the Re-Entry Process:

chapters and policy statements:
About the Report of the Re-Entry Council

Policy Statement 16, Research Highlight 1

Just over half of the prison population works while incarcerated.

In 2000, 53 percent of state and federal prisoners (48 percent and 100 percent, respectively) who were eligible and able to work had a work assignment. [1]  , [2]   The type and required skill level of work conducted by people in prison varies. The vast majority was assigned to general maintenance positions (39 percent of state prisoners; 83 percent of federal prisoners). Smaller numbers worked in correctional industry programs (6 percent and 23 percent) and in farming or agricultural work assignments (3 percent and 0.2 percent). Work assignments are less common in jails-not surprising given the short length of stay for many inmates. About one quarter of people in jail have institution-based jobs. [3]  

Another category of correctional work is work release. Work-release programs that permit soon-to-be-released individuals to work outside the prison walls during the day and to return to the prison or a halfway house in the evenings were popular with departments of corrections through the 1970s. More recently, poor research results (e.g., failure to realize cost-savings and no decrease in recidivism rates), a decline in federal funding, and political concern about high-profile re-offending by work-release inmates have reduced the prevalence of such programs. [4]   In 2000, less than a third of all correctional institutions operated work-release programs, and only about two percent of the nation's inmates participated in them. [5]  

  1. Camille Camp and George M. Camp, The Corrections Yearbook 2000 (Middletown, CT: Criminal Justice Institute, 2000). back
  2. Rob Atkinson and Knut A. Rostad, Can Inmates Become an Integral Part of the US Workforce? (paper presented at Urban Institute's Reentry Roundtable, New York, May 2003). Eligible and able inmates are those who are not on a security- or medical-restricted status. back
  3. C. W. Harlow, Profile of Jail Inmates, 1996, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: 1998), NCJ 164620. back
  4. Work-release programs have not been rigorously evaluated. The most ambitious study was an evaluation of Washington State's program, where participants served the final four to six months of their prison sentence in a community-based work-release facility. They were required to work, submit to drug testing, observe curfews, and return to the institution at night. A random assignment evaluation found that recidivism rates for the participants and the control group were about the same. In addition, the program did not save money. Susan Turner and Joan Petersilia, Work Release: Recidivism and Corrections Costs in Washington State, National Institute of Justice Research in Brief (Washington DC: The National Institute of Justice, 1996). back
  5. James J. Stephan and Jennifer C. Karberg, Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2000, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington DC: 2003), NCJ 198272. back
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