Work Release

Each year, nearly 600,000 incarcerated offenders in the United States are released from prison to return to their communities. The vast majority move directly from prison back into society with little preparation for their reintegration into the outside community. Many offenders are released with a set of clothes, transportation, and nominal “gate money” to begin the reintegration process. Not surprisingly, many offenders fail to reintegrate and eventually return to prison. A minority, however, have the opportunity to participate in some form of temporary release for a limited period of time before they obtain full release to return home. Home furlough, work release, and study release are all forms of authorized, unescorted release from a correctional institution for some specified period of time. These temporary releases from prison are granted for the purpose of enabling inmates to reestablish community contacts and family ties on a gradual basis.

Work release programs respond to the need for transitional services for offenders. Observers of correctional practices believe that, without appropriate services—particularly job skills and placement—to support offenders as they transition back into the community, any benefits derived from the prison experience are likely to be lost. In work release, low-risk offenders spend the last several months of their sentences in a community facility, working during the day but returning to the facility during nights and weekends. Work release assumes that those offenders who obtain work skills during their prison terms will become more productive members of society and refrain from subsequent criminal behavior once released.

Work release does have its critics. Not everyone feels offenders should be afforded this type of opportunity. [Page 1736]Work release has been opposed on the grounds that it takes jobs away from law-abiding citizens; participants have been exploited by some employers who feel that offenders should not be paid at normal wage levels. In addition, negative publicity has eroded support. The Willie Horton case, in which a Massachusetts inmate absconded and committed serious crimes while on work furlough (Horton was not on work release, but the terms are often used interchangeably), portrayed release programs as significant risks to public safety.