NCJ Number
209361
Date Published
2004
Length
35 pages
Annotation
Following a review and critique of the social science literature on employment and crime, this paper examines changes in social and economic structures most responsible for the isolation of ex-inmates' communities and analyzes interview data that pertain to the influence of street gangs on ex-inmates.
Abstract
The author focuses on the importance of extraeconomic factors in explaining "employee satisfaction" among ex-inmates who work in street-level drug economies organized by gangs. His key argument is that explaining the appeal of street-level drug market work requires attention to both the economic and the noneconomic variables present in any given situation. For the past 2 years, beginning in the fall of 2000, the author has conducted multisite ethnographic research on ex-offender reentry into some of the Chicago-area communities most severely impacted by crime and the release of ex-inmates. These "receiving" neighborhoods are disproportionately African-American and poverty-stricken. The research consisted primarily of semistructured "ethnographic interviews" with gang-related and nongang-related ex-inmates. Interviews were conducted with just over 50 gang-affiliated ex-inmates. This paper focuses on data provided by 12 men, because they were representative of the whole. The findings show that the principal appeal of street-level drug work organized by gangs is not so much the money involved as the social network and activities associated with the work. The community outside the gang, on the other hand, displays mistrust and abrasive control policies toward ex-inmates. The consequence is that ex-inmates are drawn to the social network of gangs for social status and positive feedback, with the end result being a rapid return to prison. 1 table, 12 notes, and 93 references