Assessing the Impact of Prison Industries on Post-Release Employment and Recidivism of Florida Inmates

The deskilling of labor and the loss of social networking has accounted for part of the crime problem in recent decades. Vocational training and other correctional programming is meant to reverse the effects of these problems by providing inmates with usable, legal, and employable skills. Over the last five to ten years, the role of rehabilitative services has become highly questionable. The lack of confidence in such services has led to a decline in the number and type of prison programming available to inmates. In addition, fiscal concerns on the part of privately owned correctional industries have sharpened this decline. This paper reports results of an evaluation performed on PRIDE Enterprises, one of the largest providers of privately operated inmate vocational training in Florida, in regards to its effect on inmates' post release employment and recidivism. This study found that working in the vocational program, PRIDE, significantly increases the likelihood of the participant being employed after release. This study also found that PRIDE has no direct effect on recidivism.