Prisoner Reintegration through Entrepreneurship and Psychology (PREP)

<< Background >>High recidivism rates show that reintegration efforts often fall short. Employment reduces reoffending, but stigma, lack of qualifications, and weak professional networks hinder ex-prisoners from securing jobs. The PREP project developed an interactive e-learning course to equip prisoners with entrepreneurial skills, offering alternatives to traditional employment. Existing prison entrepreneurship programs focus on business knowledge but overlook psychological and motivational factors, crucial for long-term success. Limited opportunities to apply learned skills before release further hinder transition into self-employment. Our project addressed this by integrating competency-based and psychologically grounded training, combining business skills with mindset development, fostering self-efficacy, resilience, and motivation. A key challenge is the lack of post-release support. Many ex-prisoners struggle to turn knowledge into action. To address this, we linked prison education with post-release mentoring and coaching, ensuring smoother transitions. By collaborating with reintegration organizations, we introduced entrepreneurial coaching into support services, providing long-term guidance. << Objectives >>Our ERASMUS+ project developed an entrepreneurship education program for prisoners, addressing business skills and reintegration challenges through a multidisciplinary approach.A key outcome was a self-paced e-learning course, combining business fundamentals and psychological training to foster motivation and resilience. Accessible during and after incarceration, it ensures continuity in learning. A transnational report advocated for integrated entrepreneurship programs, offering policy recommendations.The project also built life skills for reintegration, covering housing, finances, and family connections, while fostering entrepreneurial intentions. To ensure post-release support, we collaborated with reintegraton organizations to introduce entrepreneurial coaching and developed a coaching tool for reintegration staff.To combat stigma, we launched a public awareness campaign, showcasing success stories of ex-prisoners turned entrepreneurs.This project demonstrated that a holistic approach, integrating business, psychology, and social work, equips prisoners with skills, resilience, and support for self-employment after release.<< Implementation >>The PREP project developed and implemented an innovative, integrated training approach to entrepreneurship for prisoners, ensuring that both incarcerated individuals and ex-prisoners receive the necessary support to transition into self-employment and reintegrate into society. Through a series of structured activities, we combined digital education, psychological empowerment, community support, and public awareness initiatives to create a holistic and sustainable program. We began with an in-depth analysis of the challenges prisoners and ex-prisoners face when attempting to start their own businesses post-release (Project Result 1). This research phase provided critical insights into the structural, psychological, and societal barriers that hinder entrepreneurial success. Based on these findings, we developed three digital learning modules, each tailored to a different aspect of the reintegration process: - Fundamentals of Reintegration, addressing practical challenges such as securing housing, managing finances, and rebuilding family and social networks. - The psychological mindset approach to entrepreneurship, focusing on motivation, resilience, goal-setting, and overcoming self-doubt to foster an entrepreneurial attitude<< Results >>Our ERASMUS+ project successfully delivered a range of impactful outputs, directly contributing to the enhancement of entrepreneurship education for prisoners and ex-prisoners. Through a combination of research, training development, digital learning, stakeholder engagement, and public awareness efforts, we ensured that our work had a sustainable and far-reaching impact. One of the key project results was the development of a comprehensive transnational report on entrepreneurship education for prisoners. This report was created through an extensive review of global academic literature on prison reintegration and prisoner entrepreneurship, supplemented by qualitative interviews with both prisoners, ex-prisoners and prison educators. By integrating their perspectives, we gained insights into the real-world challenges of self-employment after incarceration. To directly support prisoners in their preparation for reintegration, we developed and piloted a multidisciplinary entrepreneurship course, implemented across all partner countries. This course was designed in a modular format, allowing it to be adapted to different legal and administrative prison frameworks, whether through blended learning or a fully digital approach.