Work—Release—a Study of Correctional Reform

Abstract

Data on work-release prisoners are used to illustrate a concep tion of correctional reform as a process of accommodations and new relationships among groups. Reform stimulated by the correctional agency is viewed as preferable to reform externally induced. In North Carolina, changes in the economic base of the Prison Department motivated other agencies to support work- release as a new strategy. Although opportunism was prominent in the interest, the introduction of work-release initiated a series of accommodations resulting in changes that promise to be genuine reform. New relationships have emerged among the prisons, the parole board, the courts, and private employers. Within the prison, new relationships between staff and inmates support the growth of a motivational system conducive to rehabilitation. Current limitations of the North Carolina pro gram, successful when measured against its original goals, in clude the restricted place of work-release within the labor-force structure of the state. Further development of the work-release concept requires extension of vocational training and other rehabilitation programs in prison to broaden the job skills of prisoners as candidates for work-release.