Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Onyewu, C. C. (2009). The relative importance of selected variables on the employment consistency of Virginia ex-offenders. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from VTechWorks: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/26264.
Highlights
- This study examines the effectiveness of prison-based career and technical education (CTE) on post-incarceration employment among males released from Virginia prisons from July 2000 to June 2001.
- The author used a nonexperimental design to estimate the employment impacts of prison-based CTE four years after people were released from prison. The author used administrative data from the Virginia Employment Commission and the Virginia Department of Corrections.
- The study found that participation in CTE was associated with greater employment after release from prison than nonparticipation in CTE.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the author did not ensure that the groups compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the CTE; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
Career and Technical Education (CTE)
Features of the Intervention
CTE is prison-based training to prepare people for the workforce after release. CTE programs provide participants with a way to gain specific job skills, including training and certification. Individuals could participate in many programs, such as automotive repair, barbering, carpentry, computer systems technology, plumbing, welding, and horticulture. Participants in the study completed anywhere from one to six such training programs.
Features of the Study
Study participants included 2,314 former inmates who were incarcerated in Virginia and were released from July 2000 to June 2001. The author used data from the Virginia Employment Commission and the Virginia Department of Corrections to compare employment outcomes of those that completed at least one CTE program with those that did not, holding other factors constant (including sentence length, criminal history, age, prior education, race, and history of drug and alcohol abuse). The author estimated employment impacts in the period of 2001 to 2005, up to five years after release.
Findings
Employment
- The study found a positive statistically significant relationship between CTE program completion and employment. Specifically, for every CTE program completed, the number of quarters employed increased by one-half.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The study compares those completing and not completing CTE programs, though the author does not show the two groups to be similar before the intervention. This is especially important because the study has a large potential for self-selection bias. People opting into these programs might have different characteristics—for example, greater motivation or ability—than those that do not participate. In addition, the study treats participants who are missing information on whether they completed one or more CTE programs as if they had not completed a program, though they might have participated and their participation was not recorded in the data system. Finally, the analytic sample in the study is limited to those who did not recidivate in the five years after release. Thus, the generalizability of these findings is limited by removing about one-quarter of the study records for those that returned to prison after their initial release.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the author did not ensure that the groups compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated relationships are attributable to the completion of CTE programs; other factors are likely to have contributed.