An impact assessment indicates that participation in prison work programs did not contribute to a statistical reduction in recidivism rates for the overall sample. However, the estimation of heterogeneous effects showed statistically significant effects on the reduction of recidivism for specific groups: 17% for property crimes; 21% for individuals with a long criminal history; and 10.2% for inmates with a sentence of more than six months. The results were not statistically significant for any of the groups when divided by age. The results indicate that, on average, the evidence cannot support the idea that prison work programs in Chile are effective [1].
The study had a quasi-experimental design with a sample of 19,602 prison inmates, subjected to recidivism monitoring over a two-year observation period.