Gillis&Nafekh: Employment Schemes (Imprisonment)

Question 1

Sample?

Answer 1

23,525 federal offenders: •conditionally released between Jan 1998 and Jan 2005
•95% male
•all from Canada

Question 2

Method?

Answer 2

Content analysis of Canada’s Offender Management system (specific to sample)

Question 3

Design?

Answer 3

Divided into:
•employed prior to release on a special programme
•unemployed

Then matched by:
•gender
•risk level
•release year
•sentence length 
•family/marital relations 
•substance abuse
•emotional orientation 
•community functioning+attitudes

Question 4

Results?

Answer 4

• time to get employment on outside: men= 6m, women= 10m
• 70% of employed group remained on conditional release
• 55% of unemployed group

Question 5

Conclusions?

Answer 5

For offenders with more severe deficits in learning, more tailored programmes should be offered as these are just as important as drug rehabilitation+anger management programmes

Question 6

Strengths?

Answer 6

• useful as 15% reduction in recidivism
• matched pairs= reduces participant variables
• large sample= ^ reliability
• longitudinal= over 7 years

Question 7

Weaknesses?

Answer 7

• ethnocentric (Canada)
• low population validity= only federal offences so higher likelihood of organised crime
• content analysis= cannot ask why
• secondary reconviction data

Question 8

Aim?

Answer 8

To investigate the effect on recidivism rates of a community based employment scheme