Effect of correctional work programmes, work training and education interventions
Mapping review
|Updated
A systematic search of the literature, including medical and social science databases, for primary studies and systematic reviews.
Summary
The Norwegian Correctional Services commissioned The Social Research Unit at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services to develop and conduct a systematic search, and sort possibly relevant references. The goal was to identify primary studies and systematic reviews, published between 1998 and 2013, investigating the effect of correctional work, training, and education interventions for convicts on recidivism and employment after imprisonment.
Methods
We conducted a systematic search of the literature, including medical and social science databases, for primary studies and systematic reviews. The search was finalized in March 2013. The authors independently assessed the identified references for inclusion/exclusion and discussed their assessments in pairs.
Results
• We identified 4222 references in total. Of these, we found 37 to be possibly relevant according to the inclusion criteria.
• These references were sorted according to publication type, i.e. primary studies or systematic reviews. Sorting the references by intervention type was not considered practical, as the identified studies and reviews investigated a wide array of interventions within our scope, many seemingly a combination of work and education.
• We identified 8 systematic reviews and 29 primary studies.
• None of the identified systematic reviews with a similar scope as our report were published in recent years.
• The considerable number of references to primary studies identified in this report indicates that it would be appropriate and potentially valuable to continue the project as an updated or new systematic review.
We have sorted and listed all possibly relevant references, but we have neither read the papers in fulltext, critically appraised their methodological quality, nor synthesised their conclusions.