NCJ Number
197130
Date Published
2002
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This chapter focuses on the developments surrounding ex-prisoner re-entry in the United States and the implications for recent British proposals for reform.
Abstract
Problems adjusting to life after prison are not all that new. However, re-entering society seems to be more difficult and precarious a transition than ever before. The United States’ incarceration boom of the 1990's was a leading cause of re-entry problems for ex-prisoners. The situation for ex-prisoners in the United Kingdom was not seen as dismal. Researchers argue that re-entry policy in the United States currently lacks a coherent correctional narrative requiring a plausible theory of criminogenesis and a set of practices that appear able to reverse the process and control the crime problem. In this chapter, a review of developments around re-entry in the United States is conducted with attention given to the implications for new re-entry reform proposals in the United Kingdom. However, it is noted that new re-entry initiatives do not imply the development of new a narrative. The current state of the re-entry field is grounded in focusing on both services and surveillance. Two traditional narratives of re-entry are presented and discussed, the control or risk-based narrative and the support or need-based narrative. They are deficit models, emphasizing ex-prisoners problems and requiring very different technologies and having different meanings. An emerging narrative, the strengths-based re-entry asks not what person’s deficits are but what positive contribution the person can make. Offenders are seen as assets to be managed, not just supervised. The message communicated to the community from a strengths-based re-entry would be quite different than deficit models. The ideal role of the criminal justice system in a strength-based future may be to simply stay out of the way and not cause too much trouble. Notes, references