Entrepreneurship and social reintegration analysis of the entrepreneurial potential of a group of inmates

Inmates need to acquire the skills for their reintegration into society. Entrepreneurship education plays an important role. This article aims to determine the entrepreneurial potential of inmates studying for their secondary education graduate diploma and compare it with the non-prison student population attending the same studies. The design of this study is a cross-sectional survey with two convenience groups. This is a non-experimental, descriptive, cross-sectional study given the nature of the groups and the lack of manipulation or random assignment. 102 inmates from the "Antonio Asunción" prison in Picassent (Valencia, Spain) participated in the survey. The Attitude Toward Enterprise Test (ATE-S) was used. Non-parametric statistics were used since the normality condition was not met and were carried out using R software version 4.3.0. Among the results, it is worth highlighting the high scores of inmate students in the questions referring to the motivation dimension. On the other hand, they have worse results in everything related to the leadership dimension. About the comparative results, higher entrepreneurial potential is observed in inmates compared to students in ordinary schools in general terms both in educational levels and in all dimensions except in the personal control dimension. There is a need to strengthen the leadership dimension among inmate students to facilitate the transition from prison to freedom. In addition, workshops should be implemented to facilitate the acquisition of certain transversal competencies that will develop their future employability.