Center for Employment Opportunities

Impact Research 

CEO is one of the only evidence-based employment programs dedicated to working with individuals who have recently returned home from incarceration. CEO has partnered with multiple research firms to conduct major external evaluations of its work. 

• More Than a Job, published in 2012 by MDRC, is a random assignment study of CEO’s recidivism and employment outcomes.
• A Successful Prisoner Reentry Program Expands is a fidelity study conducted by MDRC and released in 2016 demonstrating CEO’s ability to replicate its successful outcomes in multiple communities. Participants said that the program's most essential and distinctive elements were its structure and the support of its staff members.
• The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services Recidivism and Employment Outcomes Study used a quasi-experimental design to measure recidivism and employment outcomes for CEO participants in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, and Albany. The employment results released in 2018 show that three years post-enrollment, CEO participants were 48 percent more likely to be employed than the comparison group. Recidivism results released in 2015 are consistent with previous recidivism impact findings as CEO-NYC participants were 19 percent less likely to be re-convicted or re-arrested for a felony three years post-enrollment.
  
• Center for Employment Opportunities San Diego Retrospective Outcomes Analysis is a quasi-experimental study conducted by Harder+Company. Published in 2015, the evaluation found that CEO San Diego participants were less likely than their comparison group members to return to local custody or be charged with new crimes.
• Results For America Case Study - Center for Employment Opportunities: Increasing employment and reducing recidivism for formerly incarcerated adults in Philadelphia.
• Paving the Way Home: An Evaluation of the Returning Citizen Stimulus Program - In April 2020, the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) conceived and implemented the Returning Citizen Stimulus (RCS) program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With over $24 million distributed, it is the largest-ever conditional cash transfer to formerly incarcerated individuals. The study showed that that a reentry cash transfer program is a feasible model for the public sector to consider.

In addition to undergoing multiple independent evaluations, CEO is a data-informed organization that routinely analyzes its own performance data to identify ways to continuously improve its programs.