Transitional Jobs Are Not The Answer

MDRC, a "nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization dedicated to learning what works to improve programs and policies that affect the poor," has issued the definitive report on a three-year transitional jobs program designed to improve employment prospects for ex-prisoners.  The report, More Than A Job: Final Results from the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Transitional Jobs Program, concludes that the benefits of the program were short-lived.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) jointly funded the transitional jobs program, referred to as the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, at a cost of almost $5 million.

During the first 12 months after prison, the transitional jobs workers had a recidivism rate 16 to 22 percent lower than the control group of ex-prisoners that were not given transitional jobs. The majority of those transitional jobs workers worked those jobs for less than three months. Among control group members who did not get a job, the unemployment rate never fell below 72 percent in any quarter during the three year project.

Once the period of transitional employment ended, employment and recidivism rates for those previously-employed transitional jobs workers gradually reverted to levels similar to former prisoners who had not worked a transitional job.

The authors of the study point out that the CEO transitional jobs model demonstrated a more positive impact on recidivism than other transitional jobs models because of mentoring relationships that developed between members of small (6-worker) work crews and crew supervisors.  Yet, the CEO program experienced the same frustrations of other transitional jobs program models, in its ineffectiveness in transitioning workers into full-time, unsubsidized jobs in the private sector.  The authors suggest that "programs may consider boosting job development and placement services, perhaps offering incentives to employers or putting more emphasis on identifying employment opportunities, cultivating partnerships with private employers, and helping participants stay employed once they obtain unsubsidized jobs."

Quite frankly, the results of this project do not surprise me.  My experience suggests that the whole idea of transitional jobs smacks of naivete.  Transitional jobs programs do nothing to confront the undeniable reality that, generally speaking, private sector employers will not hire most convicted persons without significant, targeted, financial incentives.  The $5 million spent on this failed effort could have been better spent encouraging private employers to do what we need them to do.

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