Gillis and Nafekh

• Aim


  Investigated effectiveness of employment programmes for Canadian prisoners: offenders were (1) shown techniques for how to look for employment, (2) given individual psychometric assessments and (3) given on-the-job placements
• Sample

  • 23, 525 individuals on conditional release (e.g. parole) between January 1998 and January 2005
  • Of there 95% were male and 5% were female
• Procedure

  • Quasi experiment in which the IV was whether the released offenders had been on an employment programme or not
  • Main DV was whether they successfully completed their conditional release period in the community (e.g. without reoffending)
  • The study had a matched groups design (with offenders being matched on variables such a gender, risk level, year of release, sentence length, family/marital relations and substance abuse)
• Results

  • Employment programme group - 70% completed conditional release without reoffending
  • 55% of those not in the program did not reoffend
  • Median time taken to go back to prison was also longer (37 months vs 11 months)