Leisure Functioning and Offender Rehabilitation.

This study examined the statistical relationship between offender rehabilitation and leisure functioning of Oregon prisoners ( N = 281) soon to reenter society. The strong positive correlation between leisure functioning and rehabilitation is an important finding of the study. Perception of freedom and intrinsic motivation in leisure, as independent variables, were significantly related to rehabilitation even when controlling for the influence of demographic and important forensic variables. This study provides initial empirical evidence for the importance of leisure in offender rehabilitation and successful offender reentry. The role of leisure education programming as a supportive offender rehabilitation strategy is also discussed.