The ecology of the reentry process: A gendered analysis of community influences

• In Event: Under-Examined Dimensions of Reentry, Release, and Revocation

Abstract

Prisoner reentry does not occur in a vacuum. Prisoners return to neighborhoods disproportionately located in disadvantaged areas. These communities shape the availability of and nature of service providers, employment, co-offenders, economic resources, and informal ties. Given that a large number of parolees are released to a small number of neighborhoods, community factors offer policy-makers a promising avenue for addressing recidivism. Parole violators have become an increasingly salient contributor to the prison population in the last several decades, though relatively little is known about technical violations. While men and women may live in similar communities after prison, their experiences in these communities are colored by their “gendered lives” as they experience society in different ways and have unique profiles, suggesting that contextual factors may uniquely affect, or affect through unique mechanisms, the recidivism of men and women. Utilizing original data on a large sample of male and female first-time parolees in Pennsylvania, this project will examine parole violations and police arrest recidivism outcomes and explore how the community exerts similar and unique influences on men and women’s recidivism during parole.

Authors

• Mariel Alper, University of Minnesota

• Kiminori Nakamura, University of Maryland