2. Learning While Doing Time, by Anne Morrison Piehl of the Kennedy School of Government, (1995)
Through a data set on Wisconsin inmates, Anne Morrison Piehl demonstrated that completion of adult basic education and high school education programs is significantly associated with lower recidivism – defined as re-incarceration in a Wisconsin prison within 26 months. Instrumental variables using prisoner attributes are used to correct for possible positive selection bias. However, the results give no indication of significant selection bias. The primary data set used for this analysis is the monthly data file from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections which includes all 32,000 terms served in the Wisconsin prison system from January 1, 1980 until June 1990. This data contains information on the start and end date of each term of imprisonment, type of admission and release, conviction offenses, sentence length, time served, educational background (including test scores and attainment). A sample of 1,473 released men (212 of who were program completers) from this population were used in the study. All men were followed for 26 months. The researcher compared the 212 inmates who completed an education program to three groups; the full sample of 1,473, those eligible for education (N=662) and those with no high school degree (N=676). Eligibility is primarily determined by lack of a high school degree, although 135 inmates who had completed high school were deemed eligible because of their low test score upon arrival to prison. Piehl first showed that completing an education program is associated with a longer duration between prison terms controlling for age, race, criminality (number of prior prison terms), sentence in months, whether or not the inmate was serving an old sentence (parole
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