The enhancement effect of social and employment integration on the delay of recidivism of released offenders trained with the R & R programme

The aim of this study is to assess the extent to which social and employment integration enhances the efficacy of social-cognitive training carried out in prison through a Spanish adaptation of the Reasoning & Rehabilitation (R & R) programme. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare a group of inmates who received only social-cognitive training with a group of inmates who also received social and employment integration and with a comparison group who received neither of these interventions. The total sample was composed of 117 repeat offenders, serving sentence for property offences, drug dealing and offences against the person. The results obtained through a Kaplan-Meier survival analysis after a 6-year follow-up indicate that both intervention groups are significantly different from the comparison group. The group that received social and employment integration had the highest level of delayed recidivism, but the difference with the group that only received social-cognitive training was not statistically significant. The results are discussed in relation to the Good Lives Model and to the Risk-Needs-Responsivity Model of offender rehabilitation.