Barriers to Prisoners’ Re-Entry into Formal and Informal Labour Market

Aside from academics suggesting that low-physical-attractive prisoners may face difficulty reentering the labour market: permitting employers to access criminal history records aggravates the situation. The current study aims to alleviate this discrimination by generating more beauty premiums to prisoners through cosmetic surgery. The choice experiments (CEs) on hypothetical cosmetic surgery faces of 18 Thai male prisoners were conducted. In which every choice set, the respondents were required to make a tradeoff between beauty and criminal history records. The results show that cosmetic surgery generates beauty premiums to prisoners in both the formal and informal sectors with the odds ratio or increase of the utility of 1.75 and 1.754, respectively. Contrarily, the criminal history records result in discrimination to prisoners’ employments: decreasing job opportunities by 82.8% and 51% in the formal and informal sectors, respectively. The MWTP values show an additional salary to the cosmetic surgery groups for 2,600 baht approximately in both sectors. Besides contributing to the literature, the current study sheds light on the importance of physical appearance and criminal history records as one of the main barriers to prisoners’ re-entry. The findings could serve as new knowledge for policymakers to improve the success rate of prisoners’ reintegration.

The Effectiveness of Early Parole to Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities on 24-Month Criminal Recidivism

This naturalistic study involved 569 offenders who had a history of substance abuse or dependence prior to incarceration, and were subsequently approved for early parole to a community-based substance abuse treatment facility (SATF). Overall 495 offenders were paroled directly to a SATF while 74 were paroled to the community without transfer to a SATF due to prison overcrowding. Criminal history records for all 569 offenders were obtained approximately 24 months following parole. Any new conviction as a result of a new crime committed during the 24-month window following parole to the community was considered a negative outcome. Results found that 22% of offenders paroled to a substance abuse treatment facility (SATF) were convicted of a new crime compared to 34% of offenders paroled directly to the community (chi-square = 4.57, df=1, p=.03). A stepwise logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine how different factors contributed to a new conviction. Overall more prior convictions (p<.001) and lower age (p=.001) were strong significant predictors and cocaine dependence (p=.06) and parole without treatment (p=.08) were predictive of a new conviction. Additionally, offenders who completed treatment were significantly less likely to be convicted of a new crime (11.8% vs. 29%) than those who dropped out of treatment (chi-square = 11.50, df = 1, p<.01). These data suggest that early parole to a SATF could be considered as a viable means to reduce prison sentences for addicted offenders.