The importance of the company you keep: The effectiveness of social support interventions for prisoners

Key Points

• Although underused by prison systems, social support interventions have generally been found to improve recidivism and prison misconduct outcomes.
• Prison visitation tends to be more effective in reducing recidivism when it is closer to an inmate’s release from prison, more frequent, and spread out among numerous individual visitors. Further, visits from community volunteers, such as clergy and mentors, have been found to be more beneficial in decreasing recidivism.
• Correctional programs relying on community volunteers have been more effective when they have delivered a continuum of social support from prison to the community.

Read the full PDF. 

Executive Summary 

Research has shown that the risk for delinquency, crime, and recidivism is higher for those who associate with antisocial peers. For example, prisoners with an active gang affiliation have an elevated risk for not only misconduct while they are in prison but also repeat criminal offending following their release from prison. Because social support interventions address antisocial peers (a major risk factor), they have shown potential in reducing prisoner recidivism.

Even though prison visitation is not widely regarded as a correctional intervention, it is one of the best sources of pro-social support for prisoners. A recent meta-analysis showed that prison visitation reduces recidivism by 26 percent. Prison visitation has been found to be more effective in decreasing recidivism when it is more frequent, is recent (i.e., closer to an inmate’s release from prison), and involves multiple visitors who provide inmates with a broader network of support.

Visits are also more beneficial when they come from siblings, in-laws, fathers, and community volunteers such as clergy and mentors. In fact, a study from Minnesota found significantly better recidivism outcomes for released prisoners who had a greater proportion of visits from community volunteers, which may speak to community volunteers providing higher-quality social support.

While some correctional programs focus strictly on providing mentoring support to prisoners, some interventions such as employment, faith-based, and reentry programs also offer mentoring along with other services. Due to the scarcity of published evaluations, it is unclear whether mentoring programs for prisoners significantly improve recidivism outcomes. Nevertheless, published studies of programs that have relied on community volunteers to provide social support have shown promising findings.

The results from an evaluation of the Ready4Work program, which provided released prisoners with employment services, case management, and mentoring, indicated that participants who met with a mentor remained in the program longer, were twice as likely to find a job, and were more likely to stay employed. Evaluations of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, a faith-based program run by Prison Fellowship, have shown better recidivism outcomes for participants who received a continuum of mentoring support from prison to the community. And evaluations of Circles of Support and Accountability, a reentry program for sex offenders that relies heavily on community volunteers, have found it is very effective in improving recidivism and cost-avoidance outcomes.

Social support interventions have been underused in American prison systems, and there are several ways in which to increase and enhance their delivery. First, given that the frequency of visitation is negatively associated with the distance potential visitors have to travel, more prison systems should consider implementing video visitation to foster more visitation. Second, broader recognition of prison visitation as an effective correctional intervention would likely create a stronger obligation by correctional authorities to undertake outreach efforts or develop contracts with nonprofit organizations to attract community volunteers. Third, in addition to a greater investment in programs that use community volunteers, these interventions should consider using multiple volunteers per program participant to maximize the impact on recidivism.

Introduction 

As the well-known saying goes, we are known by the company we keep. Our relationships with family, friends, and acquaintances can affect our thoughts and behaviors for both good and bad. For example, research has shown that youths who spend time with pro-social peers have a lower likelihood of violence.¹ On the other hand, the risk for delinquency is higher among youth who associate with delinquent peers.² Likewise, with adult prisoners, maintaining relationships with antisocial peers can affect whether they will desist or recidivate after their release from prison.

Association with antisocial peers is, in fact, one of the major risk factors for recidivism. Research has identified eight central risk factors (or criminogenic needs) for recidivism, of which four have been considered especially influential for reoffending.³ These major risk factors, known as the “Big Four,” include antisocial history, antisocial personality, criminal thinking, and antisocial peers. Although antisocial (i.e., criminal) history is the strongest predictor of recidivism, it is a static risk factor that cannot be modified through programming.⁴ The other three, however, can presumably be addressed through interventions because they are dynamic risk factors in which some change can take place.⁵

When individuals are in prison, they are surrounded by peers who are also imprisoned for antisocial and, more specifically, criminal behavior. Therefore, it may be tempting to think that little can be done to reduce the risk of antisocial peers for recidivism. Even among prisoners, however, the extent to which antisocial peers are a risk factor varies. For example, if prisoners have an active gang affiliation (i.e., they are members of a “security threat group”), they are, in general, committed to preserving a criminal lifestyle. Research has shown gang membership not only is positively associated with prison misconduct⁶ but also significantly increases the risk of recidivism, at least for male offenders.⁷

Research has also shown that pro-social support can facilitate desistance from crime. It has been theorized that social support, which can be expressive (e.g., providing advice and friendship) or instrumental (e.g., finding housing, searching for jobs, and providing money, material goods, or transportation), helps individuals form an attachment to a conventional lifestyle.⁸ Much of this support, which can help ease the stresses precipitated by a transition from prison to the community,⁹ comes from family and friends who provide housing, employment opportunities, and financial assistance.¹⁰ Yet some research has found that the most effective support may come from community volunteers such as clergy and mentors.¹¹

But despite the importance of antisocial peers as a risk factor for both misconduct and recidivism, relatively few formal institutional programs are dedicated to addressing this criminogenic need by helping offenders maintain, develop, or enhance pro-social sources of support. Prison visitation is seldom identified as a type of correctional program per se, but it is arguably the most prominent source of pro-social support for prisoners.

Mentoring is another form of social support occasionally provided to prisoners. Often delivered by volunteers from the community, mentoring tends to be targeted toward youthful offenders. While some programs focus strictly on providing this form of support, some interventions such as employment, faith-based, and reentry programs offer mentoring along with other services.

In what follows, I review the evidence on the effectiveness of social support interventions for prisoners. In addition to examining the prison visitation literature, I discuss research that has examined social support from mentors and, more broadly, community volunteers. In the conclusion, I offer several recommendations to increase and enhance the delivery of social support interventions for prisoners.

Read the full report. 

Notes

1. Delbert S. Elliott, “Serious Violent Offenders: Onset, Developmental Course, and Termination—The American Society of Criminology 1993 Presidential Address,” Criminology 32, no. 1 (1994): 1–21.
2. Joan McCord, Cathy Spatz Widom, and Nancy A. Crowell, Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2001).
3. D. A. Andrews, James Bonta, and Stephen Wormith, “The Recent Past and Near Future of Risk and/or Need Assessment,” Crime & Delinquency 52 (2006): 7–27.
4. Matthew R. Durose, Alexia D. Cooper, and Howard N. Snyder, “Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 30 States in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010,” US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014; and Paul Gendreau, Tracy Little, and Claire Goggin, “A Meta-Analysis of the Predictors of Adult Offender Recidivism: What Works!,” Criminology 34 (1996): 575–607.
5. Andrews, Bonta, and Wormith, “The Recent Past and Near Future of Risk and/or Need Assessment.”
6. Gerald G. Gaes et al., “The Influence of Prison Gang Affiliation on Violence and Other Prison Misconduct,” Prison Journal 82 (2002): 359–85; and Richard Tewksbury, David Patrick Connor, and Andrew S. Denney, “Disciplinary Infractions Behind Bars: An Exploration of Importation and Deprivation Theories,” Criminal Justice Review 39 (2014): 201–18.
7. Grant Duwe, “The Development, Validity, and Reliability of the Minnesota Screening Tool Assessing Recidivism Risk (MnSTARR),” Criminal Justice Policy Review 25 (2014): 579–613.
8. Travis Hirschi, Causes of Delinquency (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969).
9. Robert Agnew, “Foundation for a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency,” Criminology 30 (1992): 47–88.
10. Mark T. Berg and Beth M. Huebner, “Reentry and the Ties That Bind: An Examination of Social Ties, Employment, and Recidivism,” Justice Quarterly 28, no. 2 (2011). 
11. Grant Duwe and Byron R. Johnson, “The Effects of Prison Visits from Community Volunteers on Offender Recidivism,” Prison Journal 96 (2016): 279–303.