Beyond Recidivism

This chapter highlights a number of flaws with current practices in the measurement of recidivism and offers suggestions for improvements in the measurement, collection, and sharing of data related to the experiences of individuals returning to society from incarceration. Problems with current measures of recidivism include lack of precision, lack of standardization, and possible bias. Multiple, precise, and uniformly defined measures should be used. Measures that focus on reengagement with the criminal justice system are insufficient to gauge a reentering individual’s progress, which is likely to be incremental, will probably involve setbacks, and inevitably spans numerous policy areas. Instead of primarily emphasizing reentering individuals’ risks of recidivating, more attention should be paid to their needs, and to information about access to reentry resources to address those needs. Data sharing between different levels of government and policy domains, between custody and community, and across the public and nonprofit sectors can improve the delivery of resources and services, reducing waste and improving lives. Concerns about privacy and confidentiality, technological limitations, insufficient funding and capacity, and lack of motivation currently impede efforts to share and integrate data. With political will, support, and resources, obstacles to data sharing can be overcome.

Formerly Incarcerated Men’s Negotiation of Family Support

Research about prisoner reentry has identified an assortment of needs for formerly incarcerated men. In addition to concerns such as finding employment, securing housing, and complying with supervision requirements, they must navigate family relationships that may have been strained prior to incarceration, and are further challenged by the separation imposed by confinement. Paradoxically, these family relationships that pose challenges also hold great promise to mitigate some of the other hardships posed by reintegration. Family members often provide support and assistance that is not readily available through other channels: a place to sleep, transportation, job leads, meals, and encouragement. Yet, the provision and receipt of instrumental and emotional support requires substantial negotiation of fluid and shifting relationship dynamics. Emotional attachments therefore become entangled with instrumental needs, the availability of specific resources, and willingness to share these resources. Through analysis of in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated men in an urban Northeastern city, this chapter examines how they identify potential avenues of familial support, how they balance and maximize resources gained from family members, and how they manage strains in family relationships. Research and policy implications for understanding both the benefits and limitations of family support for formerly incarcerated men are discussed.

Social Support in Daily Life at Reentry

Throughout the reentry literature, there is widespread recognition about the central role of social support—including emotional and instrumental support—to prevent recidivism and promote integration. Although emotional support is often considered a relatively more important construct than instrumental support in scholarship on stress and coping, reentry research generally focuses on the provision of material and informational resources. This chapter analyzes novel data—daily open-ended survey questions via smartphones about a person’s most important positive and negative points of the day—to understand the types of social support that people most value in their daily lives in the immediate months after release from prison. Using this approach, the chapter describes the importance of spending time with others, the central role of children, and changes in support over time. The chapter concludes by recommending that reentry scholars pay greater attention to the construct of emotional support in studies of recidivism and integration.

“This Individual May or May Not Be on the Megan’s Law Registry”

To examine the unique experiences of reentry for those with a sex offender label, this chapter presents an in-depth case study of “Tony,” who pled guilty to statutory sexual assault at age nineteen. It follows his twelve-year path through the system, highlighting its key features, most notably that the state parole agency did not distinguish between registered and non-registered parolees. Tony was effectively labeled a child molester and subject to draconian restrictions upon where he could live and work; who he could associate with; and what technology he could possess. This has led to a cycle of parole revocations and reincarcerations that may have embedded him permanently in the system. His experiences with parole conditions including compulsory treatment, housing, employment, and social support are reviewed. Implications for the overbroad application of sex offender restrictions are discussed.

Prison Experiences and Identity in Women’s Life Stories

This chapter describes women’s perceptions of the pains of prison and their identity development while incarcerated. The 44 women in the sample had histories of substance abuse and felony offending and were from rural, small town, suburban, and urban areas. Interviewers encouraged the women to take the lead in shaping their life stories. Revealing the importance of relationships to the women, inductive analysis of the life stories showed that distress over the inability to fill perceived obligations to relatives and separation from children were the most commonly mentioned pains of incarceration. Relevant to narrative identity theory, increased spirituality was the most common form of making good of negative prison experiences. Relevant to cognitive transformation theory, some incarcerated women pictured themselves in new prosocial roles in their families, grabbed onto hooks for change in the prison, and came to see criminal behavior as negative. Findings suggest that women see themselves as essential to their children and other relatives, and that prisons should strive to provide opportunities for women to not only increase their spirituality, but also to develop agency and communion and to support women’s identity as caregivers and mothers.

Conducting In-Depth Interviews with Jailed Fathers and Their Family Members

This chapter describes the Jail and Family Life Study, a longitudinal and qualitative investigation into the complex and potentially countervailing ways that paternal incarceration creates, maintains, and exacerbates inequalities among families and children. First, this chapter highlights that jails are an understudied yet critically essential aspect of the criminal justice system with important implications for family life. Second, it describes difficulties in navigating access to jailed fathers, an especially vulnerable population, and their family members. In doing so, this chapter also describes challenges associated with interviewing multiple members of the same family. Taken together, this data collection effort contributes to the growing literature on the collateral consequences of incarceration by examining how the cycle of jail incarceration and release affects fathers and their family members (including their children, their children’s mothers and caregivers, and their own mothers).

The Promise of Unpacking the Black/White Dichotomy for Reentry Research

Scholars have extensively examined prisoner reentry, spanning across various aspects of post-incarceration life and exploring the intersections of gender, class, and race. In fact, racial background has increasingly appeared as a central focus in reentry research, accounting for the impact of social-structural factors on the reintegration of black individuals. Yet, less attention is given to divergent experiences across ethnicities—creating a black/white dichotomy in reentry research. This chapter reviews how large racial classifications may have negative consequences on providing adequate assistance to all formerly incarcerated individuals and on addressing unique reentry issues they encounter across ethnic groups and subgroups. This chapter argues that unpacking the black/white dichotomy is a promising approach to expand knowledge of prisoner reentry and enhance programmatic efforts to support reintegration.

Interviewing the “Rabble Class”

This chapter reflects on in-depth interview dynamics and strategies that shape data collection and quality in studies of returning prisoners. The author discusses qualitative research design and goals, data collection in the field, and key factors shaping success in the field. She draws on interview data, along with criminal history, institutional release data, and contact logs to reflect on what made participant retention more likely, what hindered retention, and strategies to improve it. While it is challenging to maintain connections with returning prisoners over time, especially those who are particularly disadvantaged and marginalized, maintaining these ties provides crucial information to understanding the process of reentry. Attempts at maintaining contact, even when unsuccessful, also provide important insight into these experiences. At the same time, there are important ethical considerations for researchers to keep in mind.

Does Thinking of Oneself as a “Typical Former Prisoner” Contribute to Reentry Success or Failure?

Research findings indicate that persisters and desisters from crime differ in how they view themselves (i.e., social identity) and in their optimism in the ability to “go straight.” This chapter examines formerly incarcerated persons’ level of agreement with the statement “I am a typical former prisoner.” The sample consists of 228 formerly incarcerated persons involved as clients at agencies providing reintegration-related services. The relationship between thinking of oneself as a typical former prisoner and a variety of variables previously found to be related to desistance from crime and/or successful reintegration (e.g., age, sex, criminal history, criminal attitude, social bonds, perceptions of stigma, psychological well-being, and forecasts of re-arrest) are examined using correlation analysis and regression analysis. Implications of the findings for desistance from crime and prisoner reentry research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Collecting Social Network Data in Prison and during Reentry

This chapter provides a guide for collecting primary social network data from prisoners and reentrants. The ideal reader is a researcher who wishes to incorporate networks into a future study related to incarceration or community reentry. The chapter begins with a brief summary of two recent projects that draw on network data to study prison informal social structure and reentry. It then provides a simple introduction to social network analysis and an overview of the key challenges for conducting network research in prison. The chapter ends with a discussion of some of the potential applications of network science for understanding the prison setting and reentry experience. In so doing, the chapter provides an insider’s view of the authors’ own research experiences and a road map of likely challenges in conducting this type of research in correctional institutions.