The Place of Reentry: How recently incarcerated and other residents perceive their neighborhoods

• In Event: 4413 - Urban Issues

Abstract

Research on the neighborhood context of reentry typically focuses on how neighborhood and place shape the recidivism and desistance of people returning from prison. Conclusions typically suggest that returning prisoners are more likely to desist in neighborhoods that are more advantaged and which are new to the prisoners. A common policy suggestion then is to foster the ability of returning prisoners to return to new, and less disadvantaged, neighborhoods. Yet different neighborhoods and residents may also have differing levels of tolerance for formerly incarcerated populations. Moving to some “good” neighborhoods may also expose returning prisoners to higher levels, or different forms, of stigma. This paper is a case study of a single neighborhood: the South End in Boston. The South End is both gentrified and the site of services often needed by returning prisoners, including a public hospital, methadone clinics, and homeless shelters. I draw on interviews with residents of the South End, including people returning from incarceration who live at least part of their first year out in the South End. All residents’ cognitive maps of their neighborhoods are shaped by their activity spaces in the neighborhood and their social networks. This means that residents in different social positions experience the same places very differently, and that being in “good” neighborhoods also comes with social and emotional costs to marginalized populations.

Author

• Andrea M. Leverentz, University of Massachusetts Boston