Offender Reentry

An Innovative New Text That Addresses a Critical Issue Nearly 2,000 people are released from prison every day in the United States, many of whom face significant barriers to re-entry into the civilian population. Within three years, two-thirds of them will be rearrested, and nearly half will return to prison for a new crime or parole violation. Offender Reentry: Rethinking Criminology and Criminal Justice is the first text of its kind to address this major issue in criminology and criminal justice. Bringing together cutting-edge and never-before-published research, and authored by the most critically recognized experts in the field, this text offers students extraordinary insight into the experiences of both offenders in reentry and the practitioners who work within the legal system. Real-world stories from criminal justice professionals and offenders themselves are integrated with up-to-the minute research and thought-provoking analysis. Student-oriented pedagogical features, including critical-thinking and discussion questions for every chapter, push students to engage deeply with the text and synthesize their own innovative solutions to contemporary problems. The text addresses all of the societal factors that affect offender reentry, as well as the political and economic effects on the community and issues of public safety. Ideally suited for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in criminal justice and criminology, Offender Reentry is an invaluable new addition to the field.

"In this comprehensive exploration of the core issues surrounding offender reentry, Elaine Gunnison and Jacqueline Helfgott highlight the constant tension between policies meant to ensure smooth reintegration and the social forces--especially the stigma of a criminal record--that can prevent it from happening. Gunnison and Helfgott focus on the factors that enhance reentry success as they address challenges related to race, class, and gender. Drawing on accounts from corrections professionals and former inmates to illustrate the real-life consequences of reentry policy, they shed light on one of the key criminal justice issues of our time."--Publisher's description.

This book addresses the core issues in prisoner reentry into society after incarceration. The chapters are written by academic scholars who have much experience researching and writing about prisoner reentry and by people who work in the field of prison reentry. Comprising reviews of empirical literature, this study is also supplemented by the workings of a reentry agency in the state of California. The focus of the work is to provide the best practices within prisoner reentry programs, to explore the barriers experienced by both prisoners and reentry agencies as they work toward the reentry of prisoners, and to discuss critical issues associated with prisoner reentry. The authors broach various topics regarding life after imprisonment, such as: the financial burden, problems faced by sex offenders, changing family dynamics and employment. An engaging and thought-provoking study, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of criminology theory, the justice system and sociology.

'If you do the crime you gotta do the time.' This adage reflects the overall attitude most Americans have about crime and the criminal justice system. Implicit in this adage is the notion that once 'the time' is done, the individual is free to re-enter society and resume a normal life. In Prisoner Re-entry and Social Capital, authors Earl Smith and Angela J. Hattery challenge this myth. Prisoner Re-entry and Social Capital takes as its starting point interviews with twenty-five men and women during the summer of 2008 about their experiences with re-entering the 'free world' after a period of incarceration. By analyzing the experiences of these men and women, Smith and Hattery look in depth at the factors that inhibit successful re-entry and illustrate some successes and failures. The book examines individual characteristics that inhibit successful re-entry such as addiction and sex offender status as well as the unique challenges faced by women. Uniquely, Smith and Hattery focus on the role that social capital plays as one of the most important factors that shapes the re-entry experience. Today, one of the most pressing issues facing scholars, those who work in the criminal justice system, and the citizenry as a whole is the extraordinarily high rate of recidivism. These interviews and analyses provide a deeper and more precise understanding of the biases faced by re-entry felons in the labor market and work to address the key barriers to re-entry in hopes to aid in their elimination.