Prison, Punishment and Reentry in Portugal: Needs and Barriers of Male and Female Prisoners

• In Event: Roundtable: Problems of Reentry

Abstract

Knowing that understanding how prisoners perceive their lives and the potential opportunities and constraints within their environments can provide important insight into their future involvement with crime, this paper aims to explore expectations and perceptions about the reentry process, through the views of women and men who are about to finish their prison sentences. Based on 78 interviews with male and female prisoners in three Portuguese central prisons, gender differences will be analysed regarding both the expectations and perceptions of these prisoners towards the role of the prison in preparing them while inside prison walls, and the social factors considered relevant for their reentry process on the outside.
At the end, it will be discussed the gender specificities and convergences on the needs and barriers of the reentry process, while critically debating how violence, incarceration and other forms of punishment is recurring in their testimonies, or is perceived by prisoners, ultimately interfering in their trajectories.

Author

• Silvia Gomes, University of Minho / ISMAI