Evaluation of the Pathway Home Grant Program

Although the racial disparity among the incarcerated has narrowed slightly in recent years, Blacks were still six times more likely to be behind bars in 2017 than Whites, and twice as likely as Hispanics (Gramlich 2019). Regardless of race, individuals released from incarceration face substantial obstacles to successful reentry.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has funded the Pathway Home Grant Program, an ambitious effort to strengthen ties between pre-release services for those in local jails and state correctional facilities and post-release services available in the community and the workforce development system. Building on Mathematica and SPR’s earlier evaluation of the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release program, DOL provided nearly $65 million to 20 grantees across 15 states to provide to individuals’ education and training, job preparation, case management, and other services before release from incarceration, and to continue comprehensive services and skill-building services such as apprenticeships after release. Using a continuity-of-care model, Pathway Home allows participants to maintain the same case manager pre- and post-release. As noted in the LEAP evaluation, this continuity enables participants to capitalize on their time while incarcerated and facilitates enrollment in reentry services in the community.

The Evaluation of the Pathway Home Grants (Pathway Home Evaluation) will provide DOL, grantees, and other stakeholders with formative information that can build the knowledge base about reentry employment programs, including those pre- and post-release. It will also provide DOL with options to learn more about grantees’ early and later implementation efforts and the impacts of access to services on participants’ outcomes. If DOL pursues one or more optional evaluations, it will obtain actionable evidence on the efficacy and implementation of the Pathway Home grants, including the grantees’ approaches to planning and partnerships, variation in grantees’ operations across contexts (such as in jails versus state correctional facilities), and innovative strategies that grantees used for planning and implementation.