Qualitative Research in Punishment and Reentry

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

Conducting qualitative research in punishment is notoriously difficult. Researchers must first overcome hurdles related to obtaining approval from their own institutions as well as correctional institutions and/or community-based organizations. Once in the field, qualitative fieldwork with people impacted by the penal system requires that researchers demonstrate reflexivity, sensitivity, and a profound ethic of care. When done well, however, qualitative research in this area can be tremendously powerful: It humanizes people who (when they are not erased entirely) are stigmatized and vilified in conversations about crime and punishment; it expands our understanding of the reach of the penal system and its harms; and it offers us a chance to grasp more fully the complexity and depth of the lives of those impacted by the system.

This panel brings together a group of scholars actively engaged in qualitative fieldwork in punishment and reentry. Through a discussion of their wide-ranging methodologies, substantive topics, and philosophical orientations, panelists will highlight how qualitative research deepens and enriches our understanding of how the penal system is experienced by those in its grasp.

Sub Unit

• Area XI. Methodology / 78. Advances in Qualitative Methods

Individual Presentations

• Sensemaking and Attunement: The Process and Potential of Sensory Criminology - Kate Zoe Herrity, University of Cambridge

• Guaranteed: A Qualitative Exploration of Unconditional Cash Transfers Among People with Felony Records - Lucius Couloute, Suffolk University

• Exploring Reentry Survivorship - Arden Richards-Karamarkovich, George Mason University

• Notepads to Smart Devices: Doing Carceral Research in the Digital Age - Calvin John Smiley, Hunter College, CUNY

Chair

• Rachel Ellis, University of Maryland

Discussant

• Janani Umamaheswar, George Mason University