The expanding prisoner reentry industry

The prisoner reentry industry (PRI) has become a major part of the Social Control Industrial Complex. As with the Prison Industrial Complex, the PRI is not just a collection of institutions, organizations, and interest groups (both public and private); it is also a state of mind. Developing and facilitating programs and services for the formerly incarcerated have become a huge “cash-cow,” producing profits for the PRI at the expense of the taxpayer, while doing little to link the formerly incarcerated person to the social capital and human skills necessary to become a “citizen.” Data that include the voices of the formerly incarcerated, members of their families, and criminal justice practitioners suggest that a person’s level of success during their “personal reentry experience” varies in large part, by the individual parole officer they are assigned to and the number and types of programs they are required to participate in. Furthermore, their quality of life after release and their level of success is determined in large part by the program administrators managing those “for-profit companies” and “non-profit/for-profit agencies,” that supervise parolee programs. The argument here is that there must be a better system for monitoring the activities of those organizations that are in the business of facilitating prisoner reentry-related services. A process of accountability that will ensure that organizations part of the PRI are in fact providing services in the manner that was stated and agreed upon during their request for funding. The most important tool for ending this cycle lies in creating employment opportunities for the formerly incarcerated and empowering them to access those resources afforded all citizens. Consequently, if those agencies and organizations in the business of facilitating prisoner reentry were successful at making available the services they argue they do provide, members of these organizations would work themselves out of a job; that would be a valid indicator of organizational success.     

The unintended effects of prisoner reentry policy and the marginalization of urban communities

Despite the stated purpose of the Prisoner Reentry Industry, to effectively manage formerly incarcerated individuals’ transition back into the community, there is evidence to suggest that its policies may be counterproductive to this process. Drawing on personal experiences as a mentor to a formerly incarcerated African-American woman, this essay seeks to provide examples of how policy gridlock can impede the transition of individuals from prison, into the community, and how this contributes to the economic and social affliction of urban communities.     

Facilitating Failure: Parole, Reentry, and Obstacles to Success

The emergence of the “Prisoner Reentry Industry (PRI)” has produced a multitude of mechanisms that now control the lives of formerly incarcerated individuals. These mechanisms and the resulting practices of the politically, socially, and economically advantaged entities afforded such control has resulted in adverse effects on the individuals directly affected by what is seemingly coercive action. New York State Parole began to contract private entities to provide parolee programs and services in an effort to reduce costs in the wake of a shrinking parole budget. This practice has created adverse effects on the daily lives of parolees and serves to inhibit the reintegration process, resulting in negative consequences for parolees, their families, and the public.     

Forum: the prison reentry industry

This forum addresses the emerging Prison Reentry Industry (PRI).  It features articles and essays from authors on three continents, and from a variety of perspectives.  The authors included here range from ex-prisoners and current prisoners, PRI workers and activists, former prisoners now involved in academic and policy research, critics and practitioners.  Together these essays mark a first effort to bring a number of perspectives to bear on a growing and already vast array of programs, in the United States and beyond.  From these perspectives, the hope is that the criticism brought forward here will help stimulate debate and reform in future discussions about a processes that affect the lives of millions of people world-wide.     

The prisoner reentry industry

The Prisoner Reentry Industry found its beginnings in the recognition that men and women who were being released from prison continued to need assistance in their transition process. Depending upon the individual needs of each person, this determined the extent of what type of assistance needed. Within a short period of time it was determined that the greatest assistance was needed in the area of housing and employment. However, once a person completed this transition phrase that was usually understood to be about three years, the following questions arise: when does the reentry phase end? When does society allow the ex-offender to move on with their lives? Even when secure employment has been maintained, when other areas of the individuals’ life are functioning “at least like everyone else in society”, when does the reentry stop and the ex-offender allowed to enter into mainline society? This article attempts to show that we have not done a good job of allowing the ex-offender to move from the phase of prisoner reentry to the phase of contributor in our society.     

Re-entry programs, from an anti-unconventional ex-offender

The purpose of this article seeks to question the relationship of higher levels of educational attainment and the ability for successful reintegration into mainstream society for the formerly incarcerated. Specifically this article highlights societal negligence for individual success of the formerly incarcerated, opting for a corporatized exploitation of those in the reentry process premised on the socially constructed label “ex-con.” Research surrounding labeling and reentry suggests once individuals are released from prison the social stigma experienced in society is a recipe for failure and reoffending. One way this emerges is in the form of hiring policies in corporate occupations, prohibiting the hiring of individual s convicted of a felony. Critical criminology suggests the class structure is in place for those in power to stay in power and keep those who are inferior in inferior social positions. Using both points of view as a framework, with the idea of corporate monopoly as a lens, allows for an untraditional critical perspective of the reentry process as a capitalist, for-profit industry. Questioning the role and intentions of reentry initiatives provides a general discussion for increasing success rates of those in the reentry process and reducing capital costs spent for incarceration. The specific focus of this article presents my experience of the reentry process.     

Prisoner reentry as myth and ceremony

The carceral boom in post-Civil Rights America results not from profit-seeking but from state-crafting. Accordingly, we must slay the chimera of the “Prison Industrial Complex” and forsake its derived tale of the “Prisoner Reentry Industry.” This murky economic metaphor is doubly misleading: first, most released convicts experience not reentry but ongoing circulation between the prison and their dispossessed neighborhoods; second, the institutions entrusted with supervising them are not market operators but elements of the bureaucratic field as characterized by Pierre Bourdieu. Post-custodial supervision is a ceremonial component of “prisonfare,” which complements “workfare” through organizational isomorphism, and partakes of the neoliberal reengineering of the state. Reentry outfits are not an antidote to but an extension of punitive containment as government technique for managing problem categories and territories in the dualizing city. To capture the glaring economic irrationality and bureaucratic absurdities of the oversight of felons behind as well as beyond bars, our theoretical inspiration should come not from the radical critique of capitalism but from the neo-Durkheimian sociology of organization and the neo-Weberian theory of the state as a classifying and stratifying agency.     

Day labor halls as spaces of containment and control

Temporary day labor agencies (commonly referred to as “day labor halls”) are privately run companies external to the formal Prison Re-Entry Industry (PRI). However, they frequently provide entry-level employment for recent, frequent, and reformed felons. All spaces associated with day labor employment are rigidly controlled and caught in a visual contradiction. While laborers are completely visible to the day labor halls for the purposes of surveillance, observation, evaluation, and ultimately control, they are simultaneously rendered invisible and hidden from the view of society at large. For day laborers with felony records, the duality is intensified. Once released from prison, former prisoners enter spaces under the view and control of law enforcement within the formal PRI system. Further, their world continues to be viewed, restricted, and controlled by privately owned day labor halls where over 50% of potential workers are felons. By examining the spatialities of the daily working lives of day laborers and their (im)mobility as they navigate difficult spatialities, it is possible to comprehend some of the major hurdles of re-entry. The spatialities of the everyday life of felons continue as restricted spaces for a “captive population” even beyond the prison walls and beyond the formal systems of the PRI.     

A formerly incarcerated woman takes on policy

This paper examines a formerly incarcerated woman’s journey from prison to taking on policy change. It points to a personal experience of drug addiction, recovery and transformation and asks the question of how ex-prisoner may gain citizenship and develop partnerships within grassroots organizations. There is further discussion of how she became involved in advocacy and policy change and the way that formerly incarcerated people are seen by those in power. The paper also discusses the invisibility of those who have had the prison experience.     

Analysis of damped oscillations during reentry: a new approach to evaluate cardiac restitution

Reentry is a mechanism underlying numerous cardiac arrhythmias. During reentry, head-tail interactions of the action potential can cause cycle length (CL) oscillations and affect the stability of reentry. We developed a method based on a difference-delay equation to determine the slopes of the action potential duration and conduction velocity restitution functions, known to be major determinants of reentrant arrhythmogenesis, from the spatial period P and the decay length D of damped CL oscillations. Using this approach, we analyzed CL oscillations after the induction of reentry and the resetting of reentry with electrical stimuli in rings of cultured neonatal rat ventricular myocytes grown on microelectrode arrays and in corresponding simulations with the Luo-Rudy model. In the experiments, P was larger and D was smaller after resetting impulses compared to the induction of reentry, indicating that reentry became more stable. Both restitution slopes were smaller. Consistent with the experimental findings, resetting of simulated reentry caused oscillations with gradually increasing P, decreasing D, and decreasing restitution slopes. However, these parameters remained constant when ion concentrations were clamped, revealing that intracellular ion accumulation stabilizes reentry. Thus, the analysis of CL oscillations during reentry opens new perspectives to gain quantitative insight into action potential restitution.     

Human services and the prisoner reentry industry

What is really going on today when men and women coming out of prison go to work in human services—the positive, the negative, and the not easily categorized? This commentary draws critical connections between reentry industrial complex, human services workforce development, and race. Preliminary findings are offered from a pilot study that elicited perspective from human services professionals who have been formerly incarcerated. Directions for further exploration of this phenomenon are proposed.     

Investigating a Novel Activation-Repolarisation Time Metric to Predict Localised Vulnerability to Reentry Using Computational Modelling

Exit sites associated with scar-related reentrant arrhythmias represent important targets for catheter ablation therapy. However, their accurate location in a safe and robust manner remains a significant clinical challenge. We recently proposed a novel quantitative metric (termed the Reentry Vulnerability Index, RVI) to determine the difference between activation and repolarisation intervals measured from pairs of spatial locations during premature stimulation to accurately locate the critical site of reentry formation. In the clinic, the method showed potential to identify regions of low RVI corresponding to areas vulnerable to reentry, subsequently identified as ventricular tachycardia (VT) circuit exit sites. Here, we perform an in silico investigation of the RVI metric in order to aid the acquisition and interpretation of RVI maps and optimise its future usage within the clinic. Within idealised 2D sheet models we show that the RVI produces lower values under correspondingly more arrhythmogenic conditions, with even low resolution (8 mm electrode separation) recordings still able to locate vulnerable regions. When applied to models of infarct scars, the surface RVI maps successfully identified exit sites of the reentrant circuit, even in scenarios where the scar was wholly intramural. Within highly complex infarct scar anatomies with multiple reentrant pathways, the identified exit sites were dependent upon the specific pacing location used to compute the endocardial RVI maps. However, simulated ablation of these sites successfully prevented the reentry re-initiation. We conclude that endocardial surface RVI maps are able to successfully locate regions vulnerable to reentry corresponding to critical exit sites during sustained scar-related VT. The method is robust against highly complex and intramural scar anatomies and low resolution clinical data acquisition. Optimal location of all relevant sites requires RVI maps to be computed from multiple pacing locations.     

Other people’s children: inclusive parenting in a diversified neighbourhood in Norway

ABSTRACT

This article explores how parents include other people’s children in intensive parenting practices. Increased diversification of Norwegian society calls attention to opportunities for social mobility and the risk of greater inequality. However, insufficient research has been carried out into how parents pursue parenting in such a context. How are parenting practices informed by increased diversity? Why and how do parents become engaged with other people’s children? This study explores the concept of intensive parenting, which researchers view as commonplace among Western middle-class parents, and which leads to individualizing parenting. It argues that for some, intensive parenting also incorporates inclusive parenting – a responsibility not only towards their own child, but a concern for and time investment in other people’s children. This parenting style is linked to a desire to create a more egalitarian society, and a belief that a child’s upbringing and future depends upon the wellbeing of other people’s children.     

Normalization,Social Bonding,and Emotional Support— A Dog’s Effect within a Prison Workshop for Women

A fundamental tenet of the Danish Prison System is the principle of normalization, meaning that prisons are organized in such a way that the conditions within the walls more or less resemble the conditions outside them. When prison conditions differ as little as possible from normal daily life on the outside, it underpins rehabilitation efforts. To have contact with animals during incarceration can be seen as a part of normalization and thus contributing to rehabilitation. However, in Danish prisons, animal-based programs are not usually offered, nor are prisoners allowed to keep a pet. In an open prison, a women’s prison workshop was established in 2014. In response to prisoners’ requests for contact with animals, an employee brought her own dog during the hours of the workshop, from Monday to Friday. In Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries, not much attention has been given to the effect of the human–animal bond within prisons. To document how well it might work, qualitative methods for data collection were used, including interviews with incarcerated women (n = 12) and staff (n = 3) and participant observation (67 hours) within the women’s workshop. The dog contributed to normalize the prison setting, and participants revealed that the dog improved social relations between inmates and between staff and inmates. Finally, the dog provided comfort to the incarcerated women when they had to deal with difficult personal feelings. A recommendation for policy makers and prison officials arising from this study is that animals should be a normal part of the prison setting.     

Restoring habitat and cultural practice in Australia’s oldest and largest traditional aquaculture system

Lake Condah (Tae Rak) in south-western Victoria, Australia, is one of the world’s most ancient examples of traditional aquaculture, consisting of complex systems of traps and ponds used by Gunditjmara (Indigenous people) over millennia to collect short-finned eel (Anguilla australis) for consumption and trade. Artificial draining of the lake during the nineteenth century reduced surface water retention in the landscape and rendered most of the eel traps inoperable. In this paper, we describe the traditional eel fishery at Lake Condah and its historical and cultural significance to the Gunditjmara people. We document the impacts of European settlement on the traditional eel fishery, and describe the processes and events leading to eventual restoration of the lake and subsequent reactivation of major parts of the traditional aquaculture system. In addition to restoring an important ecological asset to the region, the restoration project provided significant benefits to the Gunditjmara people, including enhanced connection to country and culture, opportunities for economic development and employment, and increased capacity for traditional owners to progress and negotiate outcomes within regulatory and administrative frameworks. Aspects identified as critical to the ultimate success of the Lake Condah restoration project include: open and transparent lines of communication with stakeholders; building of trust and confidence with key individuals over sustained periods; use of strategic and business planning documents to guide activities; commissioning of high quality technical information to support and justify activities; representative leadership structures, and effective use of ‘two-way learning’ across western scientific and indigenous knowledge systems.     

Lessons for prison re-entry from the feminist movement

The convict criminology and prisoner re-entry movements are at a seminal moment in their development. This moment shares many characteristics with the feminist movements of the 1970s and 1980s. In the interest of not repeating the missteps of the past, the author believes that is important to draw from the lessons of the earlier feminist movement. For the prisoner re-entry movement, the experience of the rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters in becoming aligned with the state is of particular importance. Convict criminology can benefit from the lessons of intersection theory and begin to draw on the diversity that exists within the community of formerly incarcerated individuals     

Thinking about Possible People: A Comment on Tooley and Rachels

Most people believe it would be wrong to bring a child into the world if in all likelihood its life would be miserable. But if pain and suffering count against bringing someone into existence, why do pleasure and happiness not count in favour of bringing them into existence? Recently in this journal Michael Tooley has re‐affirmed his rights‐based explanation for this asymmetry. In a nutshell: to create an individual whose life is not worth living would be to wrong that individual – to create an obligation that cannot be fulfilled – but it is not possible to wrong an individual who is not brought into existence. In the same issue of this journal, in an article covering a range of arguments for and against the claim that it would be good for additional people to exist, Stuart Rachels objects to Tooley’s account on the ground that it has counterintuitive implications. His most interesting argument involves a Parfit‐style counterexample: a woman is about to take a fertility pill that will result in twins, one of whom will be healthy and the other of whom will not. Does it make a difference, morally speaking, if the woman knows which of the twins will be healthy and which will not? In this paper I argue that both Rachels’ criticism of Tooley’s rights‐based account, and Tooley’s own defence of it, are unsuccessful due to their failure to come to grips with the semantics of names for possible individuals. Both of them implicitly assume that it is possible to have a potential person in mind, in a way that misleads them about the fairness of actions that involve possible people. The significance of this extends to other areas such as abortion, population policy, and embryo experimentation, where examples involving possible people are common.     

Odd Complaints and Doubtful Conditions: Norms of Hypochondria in Jane Austen and Catherine Belling

In her final fragmentary novel Sanditon, Jane Austen develops a theme that pervades her work from her juvenilia onward: illness, and in particular, illness imagined, invented, or self-inflicted. While the “invention of odd complaints” is characteristically a token of folly or weakness throughout her writing, in this last work imagined illness is also both a symbol and a cause of how selves and societies degenerate. In the shifting world of Sanditon, hypochondria is the lubricant for a society bent on turning health into a commodity. As a result, people’s rationality and their moral character come under attack. Catherine Belling’s recent subtle study, A Condition of Doubt: The Meanings of Hypochondria, unveils hypochondria’s discursive and cultural character. Running sharply against the tenor of Austen’s treatment, however, she argues in defense of the rationality of hypochondriacs; the notion that the condition may involve morally significant defects is not entertained; any connection to the commercialization of health care is muted. Here, I contrast Austen’s morally and epistemically negative rendering of her hypochondriacal characters in Sanditon with Belling’s efforts to create a sympathetic understanding of people with hypochondria. I will argue that, despite time gaps and genre differences, joint consideration of these texts can help bioethicists better appreciate how medicine can intensify, pathologize, and exploit anxieties about illness and death, thus adding to the challenges of living well in the face of mortality and morbidity.     

Giant panda reintroduction: factors affecting public support

Reintroducing captive-born individuals of some extirpated flagship animal species is a helpful and remedy measure for promoting biodiversity conservation, and a successful reintroduction relies heavily on public support. However, little information is available on the factors affecting the public support for reintroduction of large carnivore species. In order to evaluate public support and willingness to pay for the Giant Panda Reintroduction Project (GPRP), we conducted 1100 interviews in August 2014 at Huaying city, Sichuan, China, close to where captive-born giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) will be reintroduced. The results showed that local people strongly support this project and that 78.5 % of them are willing to pay an annual contribution. Per capita annual payments averaged USD31, and the potential value of donations to the GPRP in Huaying is about 11 million USD per year. Factors like interviewees’ residential area, occupation, education level, liking of wildlife, level of concern for wildlife conservation, the degree of familiarity with giant pandas, and the frequency of visiting captive giant pandas significantly affected their attitudes and willingness to pay for the project. The notion of “because I love pandas” was the main reason why respondents were willing to pay for the project; respondents’ doubts about the appropriate use of donated funds made them be unwilling to pay for the project. The results suggest that the GPRP is highly and socially acceptable amongst locals due to perceived social, economic and ecological benefits of the reintroduction. These findings clearly indicate, for the chances of reintroduction to be most socially accepted, governments should improve management and accountability when using donated funds, and create more opportunities for the public to engage with giant pandas, thereby encouraging people to become involved in conservation work benefiting conservation for the giant pandas and other endangered species.     

Quartz Knapping Strategies in the Howiesons Poort at Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa)

The variability associated with Sibudu''s Howiesons Poort Industry highlights the unpredictable trajectory of technology in the Middle Stone Age. We reach this conclusion through a study of the technology on quartz from one of the Howiesons Poort layers (Grey Sand) from Sibudu rock shelter. Quartz bifacial technology has previously been described at the site, but this new in-depth study of the quartz technology reveals other strategies. First is the recurring employment of bipolar knapping, formerly considered as a defining feature of the Later Stone Age. Secondly, we highlight a laminar technology with emphasis on small quartz bladelets. Bipolar cores are most common, followed by prismatic cores. The knapping strategies in Grey Sand seem to involve systematic recycling and the deliberate production of microliths.