Bill 224, enacted in 1977, made inmates in State prisons eligible for unemployment compensation after release. Eligibility was earned by working in prison jobs or participating in prison vocational training programs for at least 600 hours. Eligible persons who could not find employment after release could receive 'former inmate insurance' much as other unemployed persons obtain unemployment benefits. In an evaluation with a regression-discontinuity design, eligible inmates released between July 1978 and December 1980 (920) composed the experimental group, and ineligible inmates released during this period (255) were the controls. A postrelease failure was defined as a reincarceration in a State facility within 10 months after release. Logistic regression revealed that after 10 months, the proportion of experimentals reincarcerated was 13 percent lower than the proportion of controls reincarcerated. Since payments could not be collected for more than 28 weeks, the second phase of the study examined the effects of the program over 60 months, using both State and Federal data on subjects' reincarcerations. Whereas the odds of failure for the experimentals were about 60 percent of the failure odds for controls over the 10 months, the experimentals' odds of failure rose to 77 percent of the controls' failure odds over 60 months, showing a dramatic decline in program effects over the long term. Overall, the evidence supports the program's cost effectiveness. Study limitations and future research are discussed. 4 tables, 5 figures, and 19 references.
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