PRISON HIGHER EDUCATION AND RECIDIVISM: A MATCHED COMPARISON AMONG A.A., VOCATIONAL TRAINING, AND  NON-DEGREE EARNING INMATES

Wesley Bruce Maier

During the 1990s and early 2000s Washington State’s prison population experienced exponential growth, leading to the problem of prison overpopulation. With 95% of all state inmates scheduled to be released back into society, it is paramount for the correctional system to offer prison programs that provide inmates with necessary skills and knowledge that promote the achievement of successful reentry (Hughes & Wilson, 2003). Two prison programs shown to reduce recidivism are Associates of Arts (A.A.) and vocational training (VT). Although these two programs differ, they are frequently merged during research under the similarity assumption. Additional problems with prison higher education research is the failure to adopt adequate comparison groups, as well as the inclination for researchers to only measure the programs’ effect on general recidivism rather than specific crime types. With data gathered by Washington State’s Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), Washington State Department of Corrections (WA DOC), and Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC), this study draws from a population of 23,042 male offenders released from Washington State prisons between August 1, 2009 and July 2, 2016. This research employs a quasi-experimental design to compare three groups of male ex-offenders released from Washington State prisons: 1) inmates who received an A.A. degree from Walla Walla Community College’s A.A. program, 2) inmates who received a VT certificate from any of the eight Washington State prison education programs, and 3) Washington State inmates who did not receive a degree or certificate from any Washington State prison higher education program. Logistic regression, propensity score matching, and Cox Proportional hazard regression are used to create a methodologically sound analysis of Washington State’s prison VT and A.A. programs and examine each program’s propensity to reduce specific crime types. The purpose of this research is to improve prison higher education research through an empirically examination A.A. and VT prisoner higher education programs’ effect on successful reentry and the propensity of recidivating based on crime type. This research intends to provide more precise information that will positively influence policy and enhance practitioners and administrators understanding of how these programs reduce recidivism.

PRISON HIGHER EDUCATION AND RECIDIVISM: A MATCHED COMPARISON AMONG A.A., VOCATIONAL TRAINING, AND NON-DEGREE EARNING INMATES

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