PREP: Training Inmates through Industrial Work Participation, and Vocational and Apprenticeship PREP: Training Inmates through Industrial Work Participation, and Vocational and Apprenticeship Instruction

Data on over 7,000 offenders were collected to evaluate the impact of industrial work experience and vocational and apprenticeship training on in-prison and post-release outcomes. Prior research on prison training outcomes failed to find any significant training effects. Related research on the economic conditions faced by ex-offenders has demonstrated the difficult conditions under which these offenders seek employment. Because the training effects may be subtle, we developed a large sample to evaluate the prison training programs. Furthermore, because we could not randomly assign inmates to the training conditions, we tried to control for selection bias by using a statistical matching procedure which modeled the training program selection process. The results of the evaluation demonstrated significant and substantively meaningful training effects both on in-prison and post-prison outcome measures.