Ethnographies on Prisoner Reentry

This chapter discusses ethnographies of reentry, or the process of people returning from prison to the community. In the chapter, both ethnography and reentry are defined broadly. For example, qualitative interviewing, participation observation, and a combination thereof are included under an umbrella of “ethnography.” These studies share an inductive or abductive analysis, with iterative engagement between data and existing literature and theories, and therefore the possibility for theoretical development. While much of the focus is on the return of people to the community after a period of incarceration, key works that focus on adjacent concepts, such as desistance, or why and how people with a pattern and history of offending stop, are also included. The chapter begins with a discussion of major ethnographic works on reentry, organized by those that focus on the individuals experiencing reentry (including major subgroups, such as men or women, people of different race/ethnic groups, youth, or young adults) and those that focus on systems and organizations. Then, it discusses major methodological issues, including researcher positionality. It concludes with brief discussions of future directions, which build both on earlier findings and on new technologies, and policy suggestions that emerge from both findings and practices in ethnographic work.