Does prison training improve labour outcomes of ex-drug offenders?

• Main Authors: Chan, Pei Lin, Chia, Sharon Hui Fang, Yeong, Richard Wei Jie
• Other Authors: Leong Kaiwen
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69735
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In a bid to reduce the overall recidivism rate, in-prison training programmes have been designed to improve employment outcomes of inmates. This paper aims to investigate the impact of in-prison training on employment outcomes of ex-drug offenders in Singapore. Using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method, we estimate the returns to in-prison training on two indicators of employment: average length of service and wage. We found that in-prison training has a large and significant effect only on the average length of service. This suggests that in-prison training programmes play a part in building up inmates’ mental resilience and equip them with realistic expectations of the job market, thus limiting expectation mismatch and job-hopping.