scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Book

When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry

01 Jan 2003-
TL;DR: In this paper, a profile of returning prisoners is presented, along with a discussion of the changing nature of Parole Supervision and Services, and the role of the victim's role in prisoner reentry.
Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction and Overview 2. Who's Coming Home? A Profile of Returning Prisoners 3. The Origins and Evolution of Modern Parole 4. The Changing Nature of Parole Supervision and Services 5. How We Help: Preparing Inmates for Release 6. How We Hinder: Legal and Practical Barriers to Reintegration 7. Revolving Door Justice: Inmate Release and Recidivism 8. The Victim's Role in Prisoner Reentry 9. What to Do? Reforming Parole and Reentry Practices 10. Conclusions: When Punitive Policies Backfire Afterword
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Recommendations are made for community notification policies that rely on empirically derived risk assessment classification systems in order to better inform the public about sex offenders' danger while minimizing the obstacles that interfere with successful community reintegration.
Abstract: Community notification, known as "Megan's Law," provides the public with information about known sex offenders in an effort to assist parents and potential victims to protect themselves from dangerous predators. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of community notification on the lives of registered sex offenders. Two hundred and thirty-nine sex offenders in Connecticut and Indiana were surveyed. The negative consequences that occurred with the greatest frequency included job loss, threats and harassment, property damage, and suffering of household members. A minority of sex offenders reported housing disruption or physical violence following community notification. The majority experienced psychosocial distress such as depression, shame, and hopelessness. Recommendations are made for community notification policies that rely on empirically derived risk assessment classification systems in order to better inform the public about sex offenders' danger while minimizing the obstacles that interfere with successful community reintegration.

305 citations


Cites background from "When Prisoners Come Home: Parole an..."

  • ...Conversely, employment, social bonds, and stability increase the likelihood of successful reintegration for criminal offenders (Kruttschnitt et al., 2000; Petersilia, 2003; Uggen, 2002; Uggen et al., 2004)....

    [...]

  • ...Conversely, employment, social bonds, and stability increase the likelihood of successful reintegration for criminal offenders (Kruttschnitt et al., 2000; Petersilia, 2003; Uggen, 2002; Uggen et al., 2004)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that there has been a one-sided, exaggerated focus on punitiveness in recent times, which has detracted from the development of a progressive realist account of contemporary crime control.
Abstract: There is a widespread claim in the criminological literature that the current period is characterized by a surge in punitiveness and that this ‘punitive turn’ is fuelled by a new populism. However, the key notions of ‘punitiveness’ and ‘populism’ remain largely undefined, with the result that much of the associated analysis is vague, while developments are often asserted rather than explained. Consequently, there is a tendency towards empiricism, on the one hand, and speculative idealism, on the other. It is not that one cannot find examples of punitiveness but since the deployment of punitive sanctions has historically been an endemic feature of the criminal justice system we are faced with question of ‘what is new?’ In this article it is argued that there has been a one-sided, exaggerated focus on punitiveness in recent times, which has detracted from the development of a progressive realist account of contemporary crime control.

284 citations


Cites background from "When Prisoners Come Home: Parole an..."

  • ...The fact that over 30 per cent of admissions to state and federal prisons in the USA are parole violators is extremely pertinent to explanations of the increase in the American prison population (Petersilia, 2003)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results show that paternal incarceration exacerbates child behavioral and mental health problems and that large, growing racial disparities in the risk of imprisonment have contributed to significant racial differences in child well-being.
Abstract: Research Summary This essay provides estimates of the influence of mass imprisonment on racial disparities in childhood well-being. To do so, we integrate results from three existing studies in a novel way. The first two studies use two contemporary, broadly representative data sets to estimate the effects of paternal incarceration on a range of child behavioral and mental health problems. The third study estimates changes in Black–White disparities in the risk of paternal imprisonment across the 1978 and 1990 American birth cohorts. Our research demonstrates the following: 1) The average effect of paternal incarceration on children is harmful, not helpful, and consistently in the direction of more mental health and behavioral problems. 2) The rapid increase in the use of imprisonment coupled with significant racial disparities in the likelihood of paternal (and maternal) imprisonment are linked to large racial disparities in childhood mental health and behavioral problems. 3) We find that mass imprisonment might have increased Black–White inequities in externalizing behaviors by 14–26% and in internalizing behaviors by 25–45%. Policy Implications Our results add to a growing research literature indicating that the costs associated with mass imprisonment extend far beyond well-documented impacts on current inmates. The legacy of mass incarceration will be continued and worsening racial disparities in childhood mental health and well-being, educational attainment, and occupational attainment. Moreover, the negative effects of mass imprisonment for childhood well-being are likely to remain, even if incarceration rates returned to pre-1970s levels. Our results show that paternal incarceration exacerbates child behavioral and mental health problems and that large, growing racial disparities in the risk of imprisonment have contributed to significant racial differences in child well-being. The policy implications of our work are as follows: 1) Estimates of the costs associated with the current scale of imprisonment are likely to be severely underestimated because they do not account for the significant indirect effects of mass incarceration for children, for families, and for other social institutions such as the educational system and social service providers. 2) Policies that reduce incarceration rates for nonviolent offenders with no history of domestic violence will most dramatically reduce the effects of mass incarceration on childhood racial inequality. More research is needed to detail other important factors (e.g., crime type, criminal history, or gender of parent) that condition the effect of paternal incarceration on children. 3) Paternal incarceration effects target the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of children and are likely to result in long-term behavioral health problems. We propose a strengthening of the social safety net—especially as it applies to the poorest children—and programs that address the complicated needs of children of incarcerated parents.

273 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Hauser et al. as discussed by the authors explored intergenerational implications, specifically the troubled transitions of the children of incarcerated fathers from adolescence to adulthood, by combining the logic of a cumulative disadvantage theory and the status attainment paradigm with three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effects of father's imprisonment on the social de tainment and exclusion of children during the transition to adulthood.
Abstract: This article explores intergenerational implications, specifically the troubled transitions of the children of incarcerated fathers from adolescence to adulthood. Although crime rates have decreased annually since the early 1990s, the social exclusion of fathers through imprisonment has increased, as has the further exclusion of young adults through homelessness, health-care uninsuredness, and political nonparticipation. Our latent class analysis indicates that 15 percent of youth are socially excluded, an estimate similar to administrative estimates of severely “disconnected” youth. We combine the logic of a cumulative disadvantage theory and the status attainment paradigm with three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effects of father’s imprisonment on the social de tainment and exclusion of children during the transition to adulthood. Problems of socialization and strain associated with the incarceration and absence of biological fathers, as well as state sanctioning of youth from these disrupted families, are important aspects of the cumulative process of disadvantage that we identify in these data; however, the interconnected roles of father’s incarceration and intergenerational educational detainment are pivotal in producing exclusionary outcomes for children in emerging adulthood. Although there is much evidence that the effects we examine are generic across gender, there is also more specific evidence that the absence of biological fathers from households associated with incarceration leaves daughters at special risk of abuse and neglect by nonbiological father figures and through homelessness during the transition to adulthood. Keywords: parental incarceration, social exclusion, life course, cumulative disadvantage, emerging adulthood. Family background indisputably matters for children, although our understanding of this is limited. Robert M. Hauser, Jennifer T. Sheridan, and John Robert Warren (1999) report that the effect of family background on occupations is cumulative and indirect: operating most prominently through education, but also through other institutions from infancy through adulthood. David L. Featherman (1971) found that effects of father’s status origins are funneled through son’s education. Warren, Sheridan and Hauser (2002) recently extended confidence in this finding, but they also warned that a “remaining direct effect of family background may be due to factors like direct inheritance of business or farms, social networks of information exchange, and affinities between employers and employees from similar socioeconomic backgrounds” (p. 433). These residual concerns are about private sector advantages in intergenerational

267 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examines one dimension of the economic risk faced by children of incarcerated fathers: the reduction in the financial support that they receive, using a population-based sample of urban children to examine the effects of incarceration on this support.
Abstract: High U.S. incarceration rates have motivated recent research on the negative effects of imprisonment on later employment, earnings, and family relationships. Because most men in jail and prison are fathers, a large number of children may be placed at considerable risk by policies of incarceration. This article examines one dimension of the economic risk faced by children of incarcerated fathers: the reduction in the financial support that they receive. We use a population-based sample of urban children to examine the effects of incarceration on this support. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal regressions indicate that formerly incarcerated men are less likely to contribute to their families, and those who do contribute provide significantly less. The negative effects of incarceration on fathers’ financial support are due not only to the low earnings of formerly incarcerated men but also to their increased likelihood to live apart from their children. Men contribute far less through child support (formal or informal) than they do when they share their earnings within their household, suggesting that the destabilizing effects of incarceration on family relationships place children at significant economic disadvantage.

262 citations


Cites background from "When Prisoners Come Home: Parole an..."

  • ...The incarcerated population is overwhelmingly young, minority, and poorly educated (Petersilia 2003; Western 2006), and the children of incarcerated parents are even more disadvantaged, relative to their peers (Wildeman 2009)....

    [...]