1st Edition

Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century Critical Perspectives of Returning Home

Edited By Keesha M. Middlemass, CalvinJohn Smiley Copyright 2020
    442 Pages
    by Routledge

    442 Pages
    by Routledge

    This groundbreaking edited volume evaluates prisoner reentry using a critical approach to demonstrate how the many issues surrounding reentry do not merely intersect but are in fact reinforcing and interdependent. The number of former incarcerated persons with a felony conviction living in the United States has grown significantly in the last decade, reaching into the millions. When men and women are released from prison, their journey encompasses a range of challenges that are unique to each individual, including physical and mental illnesses, substance abuse, gender identity, complicated family dynamics, the denial of rights, and the inability to voice their experiences about returning home.

    Although scholars focus on the obstacles former prisoners encounter and how to reduce recidivism rates, the main challenge of prisoner reentry is how multiple interdependent issues overlap in complex ways. By examining prisoner reentry from various critical perspectives, this volume depicts how the carceral continuum, from incarceration to reentry, negatively impacts individuals, families, and communities; how the criminal justice system extends different forms of social control that break social networks; and how the shifting nature of prisoner reentry has created new and complicated obstacles to those affected by the criminal justice system. This volume explores these realities with respect to a range of social, community, political, and policy issues that former incarcerated persons must navigate to successfully reenter society.

    A springboard for future critical research and policy discussions, this book will be of interest to U.S. and international researchers and practitioners interested in the topic of prisoner reentry, as well as graduate and upper-level undergraduate students concerned with contemporary issues in corrections, community-based corrections, critical issues in criminal justice, criminal justice policies, and reentry.

    Introduction: Critical Reentry in the 21st Century

    KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS AND CALVINJOHN SMILEY

    SECTION I

    Institutions, Community, and Reentry

    1 Halfway Home: The Thin Line Between Abstinence and the Drug Crisis

    LIAM MARTIN

    2 Triaging Rehabilitation: The Retreat of State-Funded Prison Programming

    ALLISON GORGA

    3 The State’s Accomplices? Organizations and the Penal State

    NICOLE KAUFMAN

    4 Idaho: A Case Study in Rural Reentry

    DEIRDRE CAPUTO-LEVINE

    5 Life Courses of Sex and Violent Offenders After Prison Release: The Interaction Between Individual- and Community-Related Factors

    GUNDA WOESSNER, KIRA-SOPHIE GAUDER, AND DAVID CZUDNOCHOWSKI

    SECTION II

    Health, Embodiment, and Reentry

    6 Mothers Returning Home: A Critical Intersectional Approach to Reentry

    REBECCA REVIERE, VERNETTA D. YOUNG, AND AKIV DAWSON

    7 Release From Long-Term Restrictive Housing

    LINDA CARSON

    8 Resilient Roads and the Non-Prison Model for Women

    L. SUSAN WILLIAMS, EDWARD L. W. GREEN, AND KATRINA M. LEWIS

    9 Alcohol Use Disorder: Programs and Treatment for Offenders Reentering the Community

    SARA BUCK DOUDE AND JESSICA J. SPARKS

    10 Carceral Calisthenics: (Body) Building a Resilient Self and Transformative Reentry Movement

    ALBERT DE LA TIERRA

    SECTION III

    Gender, Criminality, and Reentry

    11 Black Women Excluded From Protection and Criminalized for Their Existence

    KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS

    12 The Gendered Challenges of Prisoner Reentry

    HALEY ZETTLER

    13 An Intersectional Criminology Analysis of Black Women’s Collective Resistance

    NISHAUN T. BATTLE AND JASON M. WILLIAMS

    14 Gender Differences in Programmatic Needs for Juveniles

    LAURIN PARKER AND KYLIE PARROTTA

    15 Prison Is a Place to Teach Us the Things We’ve Never Learned in Life

    BREEA WILLINGHAM

    SECTION IV

    Access, Rights, and Reentry

    16 “. . . Except Sex Offenders”: Registering Sexual Harm in the Age of #MeToo

    DAVID BOOTH

    17 Reentry in the Inland Empire: The Prison to College Pipeline With Project Rebound

    ANNIKA YVETTE ANDERSON, PAUL ANDREW JONES, AND CAROLYN ANNE MCALLISTER

    18 The Politics of Restoring Voting Rights After Incarceration

    TANEISHA N. MEANS AND ALEXANDRA HATCH

    19 Restoration of Voting Rights: Returning Citizensand the Florida Electorate

    KENESHIA GRANT

    20 Perpetual Punishment: One Man’s Journey Post-Incarceration

    TOMAS R. MONTALVO AND JENNIFER MARIE ORTIZ

    SECTION V

    Voices, Agency, and Reentry

    21 Thoughts, Concerns, and the Reality of Incarcerated Women

    CALVINJOHN SMILEY AND KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS

    22 Reflections on Reentry: Voices From the ID13 Prison Literacy Project

    HALLE M. NEIDERMAN, CHRISTOPHER P. DUM, AND THE ID13 PRISON LITERACY PROJECT

    23 Being Held at Rikers, Waiting to Go Upstate

    MARQUES M.

    24 Reentry, From My Perspective

    ABDUL-HALIM N. SHAHID

    25 The Journey of a Black Man Enveloped in Poverty

    STEVEN PACHECO

    26 My First 24 Hours After Being Released

    JOSE LUMBRERAS

    SECTION VI

    Activism, Liberation, and Reentry

    27 Money for Freedom: Cash Bail, Incarceration, and Reentry

    CALVINJOHN SMILEY

    28 Agents of Change in Healing Our Communities

    LIZA CHOWDHURY, JASON DAVIS, AND DEDRIC “BELOVED” HAMMOND

    29 Rehabilitation Is Reentry: Breathing Space, a Product of Inmate Dreams

    ROBERT GAROT

    30 Making Good One Semester at a Time: Formerly Incarcerated Students (and Their Professor) Consider the Redemptive Power of Inclusive Education

    JAMES M. BINNALL, IRENE SOTELO, ADRIAN VASQUEZ, AND JOE LOUIS HERNANDEZ

    31 “I Can’t Depend on No Reentry Program!”: Street-Identifi ed Black Men’s Critical Reflections on Prison Reentry

    YASSER ARAFAT PAYNE, TARA MARIE BROWN, AND CORRY WRIGHT

    Conclusion: What’s Next for Critical Reentry

    CALVINJOHN SMILEY AND KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS

    Biography

    Keesha M. Middlemass, Ph.D., is an associate professor of public policy in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She specializes in studying race, reentry, food insecurity, and public policies using interdisciplinary frameworks to integrate knowledge from different disciplines and across multiple data sources, including participant observations, in-depth interviews, focus groups, policy analysis, and archival research. Her most recent book, Convicted & Condemned: The Politics and Policies of Prisoner Reentry, won the W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award in 2018. Her research is also published in Public Health Nutrition, International Journal of Eating Disorders, Aggressive Behavior, Criminal Justice & Behavior, The Prison Journal, and Punishment & Society. Dr. Middlemass is a member of the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice Network, a former Andrew Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow on Race, Crime and Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City, and a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. Dr. Middlemass earned her Ph.D. in public policy, American politics, and public administration from The School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia.

    CalvinJohn Smiley, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology at Hunter College–City of New York (CUNY). He specializes in studying race, reentry, and citizenship. His work is published in numerous peer-reviewed journals such as: The Prison Journal, Race Ethnicity and Education, Punishment & Society, Deviant Behavior, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, and Contemporary Justice Review. He is currently working on a book manuscript based on his research on reentry that explores the various ways men and women navigate the reentry process with diminished legal rights and amplified social stigmas. His future work will investigate the role of human and nonhuman interactions, particularly in carceral settings (e.g., prison-based animal therapy programs). Dr. Smiley is a member of American Sociological Association, American Society of Criminology, and Kappa Alpha Psi Inc. He is the Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Association on Corrections. Dr. Smiley earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center.