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MDRC is implementing and evaluating a range of projects that use various models of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to reduce recidivism, promote employment, and foster trauma recovery in adults and children. This two-page issue focus offers background on CBT and brief summaries of the projects.
An Introduction to the Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration and the Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration
Targeting “hard to employ” groups, transitional jobs programs use a range of approaches. Some place participants into fully subsidized, temporary jobs to gain work experience; others place recruits into permanent positions with a temporary wage subsidy; and others combine methods. This report introduces the evaluation of 13 distinct programs.
Two-Year Impact Report
RExO increased the number and types of services received by participants and improved their self-reported labor market outcomes as well. But there is little evidence it had any impacts on recidivism or other outcomes. Further, the impacts on employment, while statistically significant, are quite small in practical terms.
Using an alternative to classical statistics, this paper reanalyzes results from three published studies of interventions to increase employment and reduce welfare dependency. The analysis formally incorporates prior beliefs about the interventions, characterizing the results in terms of the distribution of possible effects, and generally confirms the earlier published findings.
Final Results of the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project and Selected Sites from the Employment Retention and Advancement Project
Launched in 2005 by the Departments of Labor and Justice, the Reintegration of Ex-Offenders initiative provides funding to 24 grantees to strengthen urban communities affected by high numbers of reentering prisoners. This report provides findings from an implementation study; an impact study is expected in 2014.
Final Results from the Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration
Transitional jobs programs in four Midwestern cities substantially increased short-term employment by providing jobs to many ex-prisoners who would not otherwise have worked. However, the gains faded as men left the transitional jobs, and the programs did not increase unsubsidized employment nor did they reduce recidivism.
Final Results from the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Transitional Jobs Program
Ex-prisoners who had access to CEO’s transitional jobs program were less likely to be convicted of a crime and reincarcerated. The effects were particularly large for those ex-prisoners who enrolled in the program shortly after release. The recidivism reductions mean that the program is cost-effective — generating more in savings than it cost.
What Have We Learned, What Are We Learning, and Where Should We Go from Here?
Each year, the more than 600,000 people released from prison face numerous obstacles to successful reentry into society, starting with the challenge of finding stable work. What does existing research say about the effectiveness of work-focused programs for ex-prisoners?
The Center for Employment Opportunities Comprehensive Prisoner Reentry Program
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) serves nearly 2,000 reentering prisoners a year with a structured program of pre-employment training, immediate short-term transitional work, and job placement services. This report, written jointly by CEO and MDRC, describes how the CEO program operates. Results from a random assignment evaluation by MDRC are expected next year.
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