The Granting of Work Release

• DOI: 10.1177/009385488100800105
• Author: William E. Knox,John A. Humphrey
• Date: 01 March 1981
• Published date: 01 March 1981
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE GRANTING OF
WORK
RELEASE
WILLIAM E. KNOX
JOHN A. HUMPHREY
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
The process of granting work release is analyzed systematically and empirically.
Administrative data on a 10% random sample of the incarcerated male North Carolina
prisoners in November 1975 provided the basis for a path analysis. High custody grade
was found to have a very strong direct path with the granting of work release, and marital
status had a weaker path with it. Court recommendation had an indirect path to work
release by positively affecting custody grade. Older prisoners and those with less serious
crimes were more likely to receive court recommendations for the granting of work
release. For short-term prisoners, strong direct paths between court recommendation and
both work release status and custody grade were observed. Work release appears typically
to be a sanction for successful performance in a long career in a prison system, and to be
effected directly by court recommendation for some prisoners at time of sentencing.
INTRODUCTION
This article is a first step toward systematic analysis, beyond
prescription and description, of the process of granting work
release. It presents an empirical analysis of how work release is
attained against the background of how it theoretically operates.
Authors’ Note: This is a revised version of a paper presented at 1978 Society for
the Study of Social Problems Meetings. The authors wish to thank Glen G.
Williams, Director of Research and Planning, North Carolina Department of
Corrections, Raleigh, N. C. for making the data available. We also gratefully
acknowledge the assistance of Carl Ballard, Robert Lock, and Marlene Pratto
of the UNC-G Academic Computing Center in transporting and managing data
files, and the provision of computer time by the UNC-G Academic Computing
Center.
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It identifies the social characteristics differentiating prisoners
who are recommended for work release, or granted it, from other
prisoners. In addition, it specifies provisionally how some of the
major decisive institutional linkages empirically operate in the
process of granting work release.
Work release programs are perhaps the most widespread
penological reform in the last generation (Busher, 1972a; John-
son &
Kotch, 1973). To recite the history of the adoption of work
release programs as a major prison innovation in the last genera-
tion is beyond the scope of this article, as is an accounting of their
standing throughout the nation. Almost all states have enacted
work release statutes, and the others have some de facto work ie-
lease program even in the absence of enabling legislation (Swan-
son, 1973a, Vol. I National Criminal Justice Information and
Statistics Service, 1975).
While the proportion of felons on work release is low
nationwide (3.17%, according to Barry, 1973), in some states like
Delaware, Vermont, and North Carolina, it is now the modal
rehabilitative tool for all prisoners and involves a higher propor-
tion of prisoner participants than any other program (Swanson,
1973a, Vol. II: Appendices A-O, B-28). According to our data, for
example, 12% of North Carolina felons were on work release at
the time of survey and 20% of them had been on work release at
some time during their current incarceration. The respective
figures for misdemeanants are slightly higher: 14% and 22%.
The rapid growth of work release was due to economic and
reformist reasons. Prisons were almost universally believed to be
costing too much money, and the belief that rehabilitation could
take place under conditions of incarceration had become increas-
ingly suspect. Work release programs offer prisoners, while
residing in prison, a chance to be gainfully employed in the
outside community. They provide a more custodial alternative to
probation and parole, and aid in cutting costs, for prisoners
typically must use a portion of their salaries for room, board,
travel, and other expenses.
The contents of recent and abundant work release literature
(Hooper et al., 1976) are generally tinged with uncritical,

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occasionally laudatory, acceptance. They mainly comprise, in
descending order of frequency: desctiptions of programs and
participants, policy recommendations, documentation of statutes
and administrative procedures-with a smattering of other foci
--evaluation of effects, chronicling, fiscal and cost-effectiveness
analysis, and ideological defense. Yet surprisingly little is known
of how work release programs actually operate as institutional-
ized, patterned features of social systems.
GOALS
AND STATUSES
From the conflict between goals of punishment and protection,
on the one hand, and, liberal reform and rehabilitation on the
other, have stemmed various piecemeal compromises. A patch-
work of densely complex legal statutes and bureaucratic rules,
varying in substance from state to state, has resulted (Woodard,
1973; Swanson, 1973a). These serve ostensibly to regulate access
to such rewards as work release. Comparison of specific features
of operational models from program to program is nearly impos-
sible (Hooper et al., 1976).
From the background welter of the many concrete goals of
work release (Johnson, 1970a; Glaser, 1964: 286-287; Scott, 1973:
178-184; Witte, 1975: 2), sometimes inherently contradictory,
come two general arguments of effectiveness: reduction of
economic costs and of recidivism. Short-run economic benefits
are clearly demonstrable (McArthur et al., 1970; Bureau of
Planning, Research, and Evaluation, 1974; Singer, 1973; Busher,
1973; Bureau of Planning, Development, and Research, 1972),
but evidence of rehabilitation is considerably less certain (Rudoff
&
Esselstyn, 1971, 1973; Bureau of Planning, Research, and
Evaluation, 1974; Jeffery &
Woolpert, 1974; Godby, 1972;
Johnson, 1969; Witte, 1975). The specific criteria for work release
attainment are continually and bewilderingly shifted in attempts
to balance punitive and custodial demands against economic and
rehabilitative goals (compare Woodard, 1973; Witte, 1973;
Johnson, 1967; North Carolina, Department of Correction,
1971). Moreover, work release programs help promote a climate

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favorable to reform measures (see, for instance, Werner & Bell,
1972). Work release programs furnish important rewards for
officials to dispense and prisoners to strive after (Witte, 1975: 2).
Work release may, then, serve to alleviate the relative impoverish-
ment of prison officials in respect to legitimate rewards at their
disposal (Sykes, 1958) even though they directly implicate far
from a majority of prisoners. Indeed, they may represent a
relative structural shift in the utilitarian direction from close
approximation to a purely coercive basis of compliance (Etzioni,
1961: 14).
WORK
RELEASE AS A CONFERRED STATUS
Work release represents a partial dissolution of the absolute
and categorical status of prisoners, and a partial departure from a
justice of retaliation. In this, it is like suspended sentence, parole,
probation, study release, executive clemency, and pardon. Like
them, it reveals an egalitarian tendency. It resembles the growing
set of entitlements for all groups in the larger society, especially
those hitherto also relatively denied wealth, income, power, and
status (Bell, 1976: 232-236). Obviously, though, given basic
underlying public insistence on punishment and safety, not all the
punished can be accorded such privileges; for the prisoner is still
widely conceived of as having achieved his punishment status, a
just desert and negative sanction for behavior for which he is
’
believed responsible. He may also be regarded as dangerous.
Who is it, then, who ought to have punishment abated? One
presumes it is those whose offenses are mildest, who appear
capable of rehabilitation, who present minimal risks to the
community, and who need it most. While rehabilitative potential
is highly ambiguous, the need of certain prisoners, their worthi-
ness to be exempted from absolute incarceration, and their
reliability as regards community safety may be somewhat clearer
in the eyes of judges and prison officials. These latter criteria may
rest on conventional standards, in part built into statute and
regulation, in part informally recognized. Could it be that these
provide justifications or rationalizations that undergird the im-

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plementation of differing theories of justice and of differential
bases of entitlement? For an illuminating discussion of different
theories of justice based on rights, deserts, and need, see Heath
(1976: 134-143). For a discussion of the signal utility of distin-
guishing between ascribed and achieved statuses in their regu-
lating expectations and behavior, see Williams (1961: 78-83),
among many others.
Ultimately, such formal and informal factors as those men-
tioned in the foregoing paragraph may tend to determine
discretionary official actions. The discretionary powers of courts
and parole and correction officials should be noted (Swanson,
1973a, Vol. II). Where there is an absence of clear and compul-
sory requirements, these definitions of the situation may be
elaborated by those empowered to do so. Given choice, what
factors do operate in the decision of judges and officials?
Who among the undeserving are courts likely to view as
meriting, needing, or entitled to work release? Whom do prison
system officials so view? What is the relative power of courts and
prison...