Re-settlement: Bringing human rights into the re-entry process

• In Event: Prison to Empowerment Pipeline: Critical Perspectives on Re-Framing Re-Entry

Abstract

Billions of dollars are spent to collect recidivism and re-entry data, to implement policies like re-alignment, and to closely surveil those coming out of lock-up. Yet youth, families, and community voice – those most impacted by the punishment system – are rarely included in “re-entry” plans and discussions. This paper explores how impacted communities and individuals with prior convictions re-think re-entry, framing it instead as “re-settlement.” Re-settlement borrows from the belief that incarceration is a form of displacement, on par with the social impacts of other types of displacement like natural disasters, war, and famine. Currently, re-entry programs act as extensions of the prison-industrial complex, prolonging individuals’ contact with the carceral state. Furthermore, the main premise upon which re-entry is built is fatally flawed – on the assumption that individuals were integrated into society in meaningful ways before lock-up – thus when leaving prison they can easily access employment, housing, and education. How do our approaches to re-entry change though, when we view incarceration as a form of displacement? When we see re-entry as re-settlement? This paper uses a “re-settlement” lens and looks to connect issues of re-entry into a human-rights framework.

Author

• Andrew Cory Greene, The Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions