By JOSEPH TURNER
The News Tribune
TACOMA, Wash. — Washington inmates who go into work-release programs are less likely to be convicted of another crime within three years than offenders who don’t - but not by much, according to a new study.
For those who took part in work release, 58 percent were convicted of a new crime. For those who didn’t, the conviction rate for a new offense was 61 percent.
The study by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, which was released earlier this month, looked at inmates who were released from prison from 1998 through mid-2003, and followed their criminal history into 2006.
The study concludes the lower rate of recidivism, however slight, saves taxpayers and victims $2,300 for each inmate who participates in work release. The savings results from less spending on criminal justice and less damage to victims.
About 1 in 3 of the 35,475 inmates who were released from Washington prisons during the 5 1/2-year study period participated in work release, although not all of them finished it.
Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne and his staff have been long-standing critics of work release. He says such programs aren’t effective and serve only as a lower-cost way for the state Department of Corrections to house inmates.
Bertha Fitzer, a deputy prosecutor who examined the criminal records of work-release inmates from the Tacoma facility Progress House, said the study is flawed and that the savings could easily be wiped out with a more thorough examination.
The study looked only at the number of inmates who committed crimes, not the number of crimes they committed or the types of crimes, Fitzer said.
“Whatever cost savings there are would be totally evaporated by the number of crimes themselves,” she said.
The study comes as state prison officials are looking to expand their work-release program by building or leasing new facilities in counties other than Pierce. The DOC has 16 facilities, with a capacity of nearly 700. Three of them are in Tacoma.
The DOC plans to double its work-release program over the next decade.
Interim DOC Secretary Eldon Vail said in a news release that work release is only part of the menu of programs that are needed to keep offenders from committing more crimes when they get out of prison.
“Combined with other programs . . . including drug treatment, basic education, sex-offender therapy and job skills, work release has been found to be an effective part of the re-entry initiative,” Vail said.
The Legislature earlier this year appropriated $25 million to beef up the DOC’s offender re-entry program over the next two years.
Fitzer said that with such a slight difference in recidivism between work-release inmates and those released directly from prison, prison officials might not be able to accomplish what they want.
“The offender re-entry initiative is banking on work release to avoid the need for building new prisons,” she said. “Will it remove the need for new prisons? Not if the difference is that low.”
Elizabeth Drake, the policy institute researcher who conducted the study, said it’s a starting point for further analysis.
“There’s a huge slice of this study that still needs to be looked at,” Drake said. “This study doesn’t take into account the fact that these people are working at jobs, making money and paying compensation to victims.
“We also need to see: Does work release help people get jobs and keep jobs?” she said.
Copyright 2007 The News Tribune