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But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry
12 Apr 2005-
TL;DR: Travis as mentioned in this paper proposes organizing the criminal justice system around five principles of reentry to encourage change and spur innovation, and argues that the impact of returning prisoners on families and communities has been largely overlooked.
Abstract: As our justice system has embarked upon one of our time's greatest social experiments?responding to crime by expanding prisons?we have forgotten the iron law of imprisonment: they all come back. In 2002, more than 630,000 individuals left federal and state prisons. Thirty years ago, only 150,000 did. In the intense political debate over America's punishment policies, the impact of these returning prisoners on families and communities has been largely overlooked. In But They All Come Back, Jeremy Travis continues his pioneering work on the new realities of punishment in America vis-a-vis public safety, families and children, work, housing, public health, civic identity, and community capacity. Travis proposes organizing the criminal justice system around five principles of reentry to encourage change and spur innovation.
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07 Oct 2021
TL;DR: The authors examined whether the putative effect of incarceration on income poverty over the life course differs by marital status among a sample of male high school graduates and found that men who experienced incarceration before age 25 were significantly more likely to fall into income poverty relative to men who were never incarcerated.
Abstract: This research examined whether the putative effect of incarceration on income poverty over the life course differs by marital status among a sample of male high school graduates. The purpose was to better understand the effects of imprisonment on a study population with relatively stronger economic prospects who have not been the focus of prior studies on the topic. Data were drawn from the 1975, 1992, and 2004 waves of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to yield an analytic sample of 2678 male high school graduates. We then estimated discrete-time hazard models to investigate (1) whether incarceration is associated with marital dissolution among married men, (2) whether incarceration is associated with marriage among unmarried men, and whether the effect of incarceration on income poverty differs by marital status among an aggregated sample of both married and unmarried men. Event history analysis revealed that men who experienced incarceration before age 25 were significantly more likely to fall into income poverty relative to men who were never incarcerated. However, men who experienced incarceration after marriage were also significantly more likely to separate or divorce, and unmarried men who experienced incarceration were significantly less likely to marry in the first place. The results imply that marriage as a path towards avoiding economic hardship in old age is seldom available to returning prisoners. Thus, the findings reinforce policy efforts aimed at education, job skills, and training as well as comprehensive family case management programs for formerly incarcerated individuals, couples, and families.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors examined the proliferation of criminal record checks at the state level between 1982 and 2013 and found that background check adoption is only weakly associated with violent crime rates and other features of state-level penal regimes.
Abstract: Criminal record checks have become a widely used method for governing access to institutional attachments in the United States. State laws that authorize or require the use of background checks serve as one important source of criminal records’ expanded reach. The current study uses novel longitudinal data to examine the proliferation of these laws at the state level between 1982 and 2013. Panel analyses provide the strongest support for a model of racial classification, with the rate of background check adoption increasing as African-Americans represent larger shares of state criminal record populations. Considerable support is also found for racial economic threat and, to a lesser extent, ethnic economic threat. Background check adoption is only weakly associated with violent crime rates and other features of state-level penal regimes.
01 Jan 2022
TL;DR: In this article, a discussion on how best to support those reentering back into society is imperative, in the fact that the prospect of reentry is a real one for most prisoners and most will be released from prison at some stage.
Abstract: Reentry is often defined as the process of leaving prison and returning to society (Travis in, But they all come back: Facing the challenges of prisoner reentry. The Urban Institute Press, 2005). The prospect of rehabilitation and reintegration are goals that some seek to achieve. On a similar note, reentry is not a form of supervision rather reentry is a reality for most, if not all prisoners, in the fact that most will be released from prison at some stage. Where even a life sentence does not necessarily mean the person will spend their entire natural life in prison, therefore the discussion on how best to support those reentering back into society is imperative. The prospect of reentry is a real one.
TL;DR: The Women in Transition Center (WITC) as discussed by the authors is one of the most successful rehabilitation programs for women in the United States, with a focus on non-violent offenders who turn to substance abuse and crime as coping mechanisms.
Abstract: Women in the United States are being incarcerated in record numbers, despite a profile indicating that they are largely non-violent offenders who turn to substance abuse and crime as coping mechanisms after suffering personal victimization. Since the steady increase in female prisoners contrasts starkly with the dangerousness of their offending behavior, policy makers should consider alternatives to incarceration as a cost-effective way to hold offenders accountable, while also addressing their profound needs and challenges. Because Massachusetts is considered one of the least punitive states when it comes to female incarceration (it ranks 49th), it is poised to become a national leader in the sanctioning and reintegration of female offenders. One program, the Women in Transition Center, located in Salisbury, Massachusetts, has demonstrated that “punishing smarter, not harder” is not just a glib cliche, but, in fact, an approach that serves society well in terms of reduced costs, lower recidivism, and greater public safety.