NCJ Number
226350
Date Published
July 2005
Length
278 pages
Annotation
This report examined qualitatively the reentry experiences and trajectories of a sample of Chicago-area ex-offenders during the first year of their most recent release from incarceration in a State penal facility.
Abstract
Findings of the study indicate that ex-offenders accommodate their criminal histories and current (limited) prospects for social and economic livelihood by "cocooning" themselves in tight-knit insular networks of family and close friendships. This insularity serves them well in the short-term, affording material and non-material benefits essential to daily life. In the long term, however, this accommodation of social and human capital shortages further reinforces their disenfranchisement vis-a-vis community life and the labor market, two key domains in the "successful" reentry trajectory. Most ex-offenders, especially those who remain gang-involved, suffer "too much of a good thing" and too little of what past research has deemed integral to successful social capital accumulation, loose ties to people and organizations with the capacity to mobilize resources on which the ex-offender can capitalize. This analysis, supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, assessed the multidimensionality of ex-offenders reentry trajectories. From the point of initial release, to relations with their parole officers, to working straight jobs or hustles, to dealing with double stigma, to resuming or repudiating street gang involvement, the study traced various aspects of the reintegration experience. Interviews with 39 Chicago-area ex-offenders demonstrate that enjoying close personal relationships was an insufficient crime-reduction, prosocial behavior promotion factor. The most successful ex-offender possesses and activates his connections to the weak ties and transcends his small community and connects him to the larger society. References