Cohesion of Security, Surveillance, and Service Provision in a Prisoner Reentry Organization

• In Event: 600 - Section on Crime, Law and Deviance Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Crime, Law and Deviance Roundtables. Table 01. Reentry and Reintegration

Abstract

Prisoner reentry is a criminal justice and public policy agenda that seeks to reduce rates of recidivism through social service provision. Since the early 2000s, Scholars and policy makers have extensively discussed what constitutes best practices for this bipartisan policy agenda. This study provides a departure from the best practices model, pushing a critical and interpretive sociology of punishment perspective. This manuscript is part of a larger project, which aims to provide an ethnographic account of an employment based reentry organization. In the case if this manuscript, I focus on participant observation evidence of organizationally based practices of security and surveillance in a post-release reentry context. Key questions include: What is the meaning of security and surveillance in a prisoner reentry context? How do security and surveillance practices relate to service provision? Overall, this study finds evidence of cohesion over conflict, analogous to broader debates on state formation in the era of mass incarceration.

Author

• Francis Bruce Prior, University of Pennsylvania