The Role of Recovery Capital in Successful Re-Entry and Reintegration: Lessons From Rwanda

• In Event: Causes and Consequences of Inequality Among Formerly Incarcerated

Abstract

Emerging from the addictions field the concept of recovery capital captures the internal and external resources that individuals may access to promote sustainable addiction recovery. The components of recovery capital include cultural capital (values and beliefs emanating from cultural group membership); physical assets (financial resources, shelter, food, clothing), human capital (knowledge, skills, and mental health); and social capital (prosocial relational supports). The current study examines the usefulness of the concept of recovery capital to facilitate successful community reentry and reintegration post-incarceration. Drawing on survey responses and structured interviews with incarcerated genocide perpetrators in Rwanda (302 survey respondents and 75 interviews), this presentation provides a nuanced understanding of the role of adaptive coping and posttraumatic growth within the Rwandan transitional justice process. Transcending essentializing survivor-perpetrator dichotomies, an understanding of recovery capital can provide comprehensive, strengths-focused understandings that can help inform policies and practices which promote sustainable post-conflict social cohesion and durable peace. Such understandings are helpful when developing responses to formerly incarcerated individuals seeking to reenter US communities.

Authors

• Kevin Barnes-Ceeney, University of New Haven

• Laurie Leitch, Threshold GlobalWorks

• Lior Gideon, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Kento Yasuhara, University of New Haven