NCJ Number
190047
Journal
Deviance et societe Volume: 25 Issue: 1 Dated: 2001 Pages: 53-73
Date Published
2001
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article assesses the effectiveness and risk of the policy of work release, whereby inmates are allowed to participate in jobs outside of prison.
Abstract
Devised as a means of downsizing prison populations and facilitating the rehabilitation of inmates, employment outside of prison has undergone a limited expansion and a locally differentiated implementation. Actually, the lack of a policy of incentives for work-release participants (both employers and inmates), as well as constraining regulations, have put the burden of the development of work release on individual and local initiatives, and on their capacity to find allies inside and outside the prison who are willing to participate in the implementation of work release. Moreover, work release is perceived as risky by all the actors involved, from the judiciary to the correctional authorities, because it may threaten their common mission of maintaining public safety. The perception that work release is a risk for public safety is an additional impediment to its implementation. 38 notes and 19 references