Assisting Offenders with Career Reentry and Development
Over the last 10 years, the number of individuals who experience incarceration has increased substantially. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics (Beck & Harrison, 2001), in December, 1990 there were 292 sentenced inmates for every 100,000 U.S. citizens. By June, 2000, that number had increased to 478 per 100,000.
A closer look at these data show that, during this same reporting period, the number of female inmates increased by 108%, and the number of male inmates had increased by 77%. Perhaps the most shocking statistic published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics pertains to projected levels of incarceration B the BJS reports that, Aif recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 20 persons will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.@
Each year, 600,000 individuals are faced with the personal and social challenges associated with a return to life and work outside of an institution. Yet mental health professionals have shown limited interest in serving the needs of this population.
The Original Intervention -- "Project PROVE"
For the past six years, the Virginia Department of Correctional Education (DCE) has provided funding for Project PROVE, a career and life skills intervention designed to assist offenders with the personal and social challenges associated with a return to life and work outside of the correctional institution. PROVE is a 13-week program taught by a team of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Ph.D. students, undergraduate fieldwork students, and community volunteers. Delivery of the program is supervised by a licensed psychologist, whose specialty area is career development and decision-making. The overall objective of Project PROVE has been to help reduce recidivism in non-violent offenders by increasing the career planning and employment-related skills of offenders. Secondary goals are to provide graduate and undergraduate-level university students with a hands-on experience in the provision of human services, and to promote communication and cooperation between state correctional agencies, a local university, and the community. Each year, the efficacy of the program has been carefully evaluated and documented via reports submitted to DCE. In August 1998, Project PROVE earned a Best Practices for Education award from the American Correctional Association at the 128th Congress of Correction.
Offender outcomes associated with Project PROVE have been quite positive. Six years of data suggest that PROVE participants become more actively involved in career-seeking behaviors and feel more confident in their ability to conduct a job search. They manifest more confidence in general work and life skills. PROVE participants also demonstrate an important increase in career-related anxiety, relative to non-participant offenders, as they move from merely contemplating the need to make a career decision to becoming involved actively in the process. Despite these positive outcomes, Project PROVE was becoming outdated and was not specifically culturally-sensitive. Hence, an enhanced intervention, called “INTUIT: Work and Careers” (Shivy, 2001), was developed.
The Enhanced Intervention -- "INTUIT: Work and Careers"
Recent research in career development suggests a number of ways in which existing career development interventions may be enhanced. Although research related to the career development of offenders remains disappointingly sparse, a large-scale meta analysis of career interventions (Brown & Ryan-Krane, 2000), suggested that five components seem to be especially predictive of positive effects. These include: (1) allowing individuals to clarify their career goals and plans by way of reflective exercises (such as writing in a journal, etc.); (2) providing individualized interpretations of career-related tests and feedback that also are delivered on a one-to-one basis; (3) providing accurate and up-to-date information regarding the world of work; (4) providing opportunities for individuals to interact with successful models – that is, individuals who have used effective strategies to reach their goals; and (5) helping individuals to assess their existing social network, to strengthen it, or to develop a new and healthy social network. In Summer 2001, the development of “INTUIT: Work and Careers” (Shivy, 2001), was completed. The new intervention addresses each of these components in the following ways:
(1) Reflective / Written Exercises – The program provides offenders with a few homework assignments that can be completed during off-hours, and which recognize offenders’ differing levels of comfort with verbal expression via writing tasks. For example, a time-line task uses visual stimuli so that all participants may engage fully in the activity, and discuss their reactions.
(2) Individualized Interpretation and Feedback - Offenders are given several published instruments ("tests") to complete. Data from these instruments provides offenders with a comprehensive career-related assessment that is fully comparable to that provided by a practicing clinician. Interpretation of results are done in class; however, offenders also are offered individual and private feedback sessions for interpretation, including the option of one or two private meetings to discuss individual career goals.
(3) Up-to Date
Information Regarding the World of Work – We provide generous amounts of
practical, work-related, information. It
is important to note that much of this information is being migrated from paper
resources (e.g., the Dictionary of Occupational Titles) to electronic media
(e.g., O*Net Online). We teach
offenders how to access and use O*Net, at local public libraries, which they can
use upon their release. Participants
are especially enthusiastic about having the ability, in class, to locate
accurate educational-, training- and salary-related
information, specific to their targeted goals and for their home area.
(4) Opportunities to Interact with Successful Models – We plan
to add a Community Panel of employers with whom offenders can interact, as well
as a panel of successful program graduates.
As in many other life areas, one of the most powerful and effective ways
to teach and inspire individuals is to allow them to interact with successful
individuals. However, with the
recent economic downturn, engaging community volunteers has become more of a
challenge.
(5) Attention to Building
Support Networks – The impact of individuals’ support networks should
not be overlooked. The success of
an individual’s attempt to choose or change occupations, and to refrain from
illegal activities, can be related to the quality and amount of support that
offender receives from important others. Group
activities underscore the support available within the group.
However, INTUIT also helps offenders examine, in more
formal ways, the status of their current social network.
Also
included was:
(6) Decision-Making Issues – For 11 weeks, the group follows the
progress of “Bernice,” a fictitious ex-offender who makes realistic life-
and career-related decisions. Bernice’s
progress is mapped out through a series of weekly vignettes, each of which
concludes with Bernice facing an important
decisional dilemma. The
group votes on what course of action Bernice should take – and the practical
outcomes of that decision are revealed in the next INTUIT session.
This allows for discussion of the consequences of one, and then several,
interwoven life- and career choices and reinforces the inseparability of life-
and job-related decisions.
In the Fall of 2001, INTUIT was delivered to a group of 13
female offenders at a Diversion Incarceration Center in Chesterfield County,
Virginia. An additional 21
divertees are enrolled in the program this Spring.
Besides explicitly attending to the five critical components of
career-related interventions, INTUIT participants focus not only
on examining their career interests, skills and values but, more importantly, how to communicate these factors to potential employers.
The women complete actual job applications, and practice responses to
difficult interview questions and on-the job scenarios.
In short, during the 13 weeks of the intervention, participants are
taught a range of skills and attitudes related to career choice, implementation,
maintenance and satisfaction.
As was the case with PROVE, the efficacy of INTUIT
will be assessed by comparing INTUIT participant outcomes to an
equal-size sample of non-participants on several standard career development
instruments.
In sum, INTUIT is a new program that helps offenders to increase their career planning and employment-related skills. The program also gives graduate and undergraduate-level university students an opportunity for gratifying work with non-violent offenders. Although the empirical outcomes of the program still are under investigation, the anecdotal evidence suggests offender gains at least equal to Project PROVE. Informal data gathered by the investigator suggest that the experience of providing INTUIT enhances students’ attitudes about the possibility of working with offenders.
INTUIT-related Publications and Presentations
Shivy, V.A. (to be presented). Introducing INTUIT a new career intervention for offenders. Accepted as part of the symposium “Community, work, and social justice: Integrating vocational interventions and research,” at the 2002 National Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
Shivy, V.A., Mazzeo, S. E. & Reed, M. C. (2002).
Assisting Offenders with Career Re-Entry and Development.
Presented at the 2002 “Relevance of Assessment and Culture in
Evaluation” conference, Phoenix, AZ.
Shivy, V. A.
& Fassinger, R. E. (2001). Assisting
Juvenile and Adult Offenders with Career Reentry and Development.
Roundtable facilitated at the 2001 National Meeting of the American
Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.