February 10, 2016
By Richard E. Alvarez
Executive Director, Comprehensive Reentry, Inc.
www.comprehensivereentry.org
Our recent discussion about social enterprise transitions to this topic very well. The real question in many people's minds is whether or not employment really has a significant impact on recidivism reduction. A recent study regarding the employment program at the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) indicates that it does. In fact, even a temporary job, combined with workforce development training, can have a significant impact.
Here in Cleveland, Ohio, there are a few social enterprises that actually offer transitional employment and on-the-job training all at the same time. Edwins Restaurant and Culinary Institute is one such example. Founder Brandon Chrostowski offers culinary training both inside the prison system and outside the walls. The reentry portion involves training at his high-end French style restaurant for which the student is paid. They are trained in all aspects of the restaurant industry, and they are eventually placed in local culinary jobs. Towards Employment is launching their own version of transitional employment training with their social enterprise, Bloom Bakery. They have retained a world-renowned gourmet baker, Maurice Chaplais, to train the staff in high-end baking techniques. The Bloom model is a little different in that they will pay a very competitive wage while the students learn and gain experience in the production and retail portions of the business. They have visions of expanding, and they may retain some the trainees in permanent positions. Towards Employment also has a long history of teaching workforce development skills, helping with legal issues, and job placement and retention. They would be most similar to the CEO program.
The CEO program started out as a New York based program and study on the impact of transitional employment training and workforce development training. The results were encouraging, so they expanded to five locations in New York, California, and Oklahoma, and they repeated the study. The results were very similar. One of the most interesting things about the program was: "While CEO work crews offered some opportunities for skills training, they functioned primarily as jobs, with the habits and competencies that make for a good employee emphasized through the routine of reporting for work each day, cooperating with colleagues, and following supervisors’ directions." The other truly surprising finding was that "Between 2004 and 2010, MDRC conducted a rigorous random assignment evaluation of the New York City CEO program. The three-year evaluation showed large increases in employment during the first year of follow-up, while participants had their transitional jobs. Those impacts faded the longer participants were out of the program, but significant reductions in recidivism persisted despite the fading effect on employment. It is likely that this recidivism effect resulted in part from the structure and employment participants received from CEO after their release from prison. Based on these findings, CEO and MDRC worked together to strengthen CEO’s job placement component, to improve its ability to help participants make the transition to unsubsidized employment." This seems to imply that just learning the important lessons gained from employment and the esteem building that occurs from the same can help reduce recidivism. These are both unexpected and meaningful results from this study that could have major impacts on how reentry and recidivism reduction is addressed in the future. They should also encourage enterprises like Bloom and Edwins to continue their good work, knowing it is having an impact on reducing the recidivism rates of its participants.
When I get the question about why someone should care about a bunch of criminals, I often have to explain why reentry employment is important to them. Reducing recidivism has an impact on us all. Even if you don't believe in second chances, it's hard to argue with the fact that preventing people from returning to prison reduced the tax burden on all of us. Enforcing the law, prosecuting the crime, and imprisoning the violator costs an extraordinary amount of money to say nothing of the impact that any future crimes would have on the victims. If we can prevent the recurrence of criminal activity through a little job training and transitional employment, who wouldn't want to do that? That's why reentry employment should matter to all of us.
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