Job-Related Social Skills Training with Female Prisoners

Abstract

Two studies evaluated whether a degree of rehabilitation is possible with prisoners and whether development of job-related social behaviors can be part of such rehabilitation. Both studies involved women prisoners, rarely tested subjects, addressing behaviors important in gaining and retaining employment, which play a critical role in recidivism. One study involved single-subject experiments with two carefully selected, volunteer women 21 and 22 years old in a federal prison. Four on-the-job behaviors were modified by a combination of office-based training and in vivo prompting, self-evaluation, and feedback: discourtesies, attention-seeking, inappropriate flirting, and inappropriate socializing. Each was modified in the appropriate prison work environment, achieving levels rated as comparable to peers. Effects proved durable over several weeks, with some indication of generalization and of the functional validity of performance. The second study, a multiple baseline across subjects and settings, involved three selected women prisoners 22, 22, and 23 years old. Classroom behaviors-off task, talking out, and disrupting-were targeted, due to their relevance to employability, with the same treatment used in the first study. Targeted behaviors changed and remained changed over several weeks of direct observation. The generality and functional validity of changes were substantiated by teacher ratings. Effective rehabilitation of prisoners may be possible if volunteer prisoners are selected, intervention is individualized, and effects are continuously monitored.