Inmate Expectations of Future Support and the Reality of Re-Entry: A Network Approach

• In Event: Incarceration, Social Capital, and Community Re-Entry

Abstract

Penologists have long pointed to social capital, both its accumulation and erosion, as essential for understanding inmate community reintegration. However, operationalizing and measuring social capital during the transition from cellblock to community has proven elusive. To better understand this process, the Re-Entry Prison Inmate Network Study (R-PINS) collected narrative and egocentric network data from a sample of inmates (n = 49) once just prior to their release, and then again during the initial months of community re-entry. This presentation focuses on the respondents’ expected future network (measured in prison) and their actualized social network (measured in the community). Preliminary results highlight considerable discrepancies between anticipated future networks and the actualized networks that emerge during the initial months of re-entry. In explaining the differences between these two networks, respondents offered insights into how inmates form expectations for future social support as they prepare for release, the extent to which these expectations translate into reality during re-entry, and how re-entrants respond when their actual social context does not align with their expectations.

Author

• Corey Whichard, Pennsylvania State University