They Not Like Us (Yet): The Importance of Intersectional Considerations in Reentry

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

Reentry is fraught with structural barriers that shape individuals’ experiences, especially in racialized and gendered ways. The purpose of the papers on this panel is to shed light on the factors that impact system-involved individuals’ abilities to reintegrate, desist, and facilitate redemption. The first paper uses data from 73 Black returning citizens to introduce an intersectional framework for exploring reentry experiences. The second paper utilizes mixed methods to explore the interconnections of race, economic opportunity, social capital, and employment among 56 justice-involved women. The third paper explores the cost of severed social capital, and the fourth uses data from 187 adults on community supervision to intersectionally explore their agentic efforts to desist. The final study examines the life-stories of 43 desisters to explore how they integrate experiences of childhood trauma into their redemptive narratives. By understanding how digital access, spatial mismatch, social capital, agency and redemption narratives are shaped by race and gender, this panel offers insights for policy, practice, and future research aimed at supporting successful reintegration. Ultimately, these findings highlight the persistent exclusions that mark returning citizens as outsiders, reinforcing the need for systemic changes to create a reentry landscape where they are fully included and supported.

Sub Unit

• Area XI. Methodology / 81. Advances in Qualitative Methods

Individual Presentations

• The Case for Using the Intersectional Digital Rehabilitation Model in Reentry Research - Kaelyn Sanders, Arizona State University

• The social and spatial mismatch of system-involved women: An intersectional mixed-methods analysis - Ariel L. Roddy, Northern Arizona University

• The Cost of Severed Social Capital: Exploring Dynamics with Estranged and “Antisocial” Ties - Marva Goodson, Arizona State University

• Making Moves Towards Desistance: A Longitudinal Analysis of Agentic Project Pursuit Among Adults Under Community Supervision - Kayla M. Hoskins, Yale University; Allison Auten, Michigan State University; Merry Morash, Michigan State University

• Examing the Life-story Narratives of Black and White Desisters - CJ Eugene Appleton, Duke University

Chairs

• Ariel L. Roddy, Northern Arizona University

• Kaelyn Sanders, Arizona State University

Discussant

• Abigail R. Henson, Arizona State University

Organized by a Division or external group?

Division of Qualitative Research and DIVISION ON CORRECTIONS AND SENTENCING