Decomposition of the Role of Family in Reentry: Family Support, Tension, Gender, and Reentry Outcomes

Abstract

A vast body of reentry research has investigated the role of family in facilitating reentry success. However, it is largely unknown whether family can both be a source of support and conflict and if so, whether these impacts are gender-specific. This study explores the heterogeneous elements that family brings to the reintegration process. Findings suggest that released prisoners’ families can bring either crime-inhibitory or criminogenic influences depending on the familial environment. Support from family members protects respondents from criminal recidivism, while strained family relationships are a significant predictor for drug use. Moreover, the detrimental effect of family tension is gender-sensitive: Females released from prison suffer an amplified risk of reentry failure under family tension. Implications for correctional programming are discussed.

An Assessment of Prisoner Reentry, Legal Financial Obligations and Family Financial Support: A Focus on Fathers

“…However, we found no evidence that LFOs predicted fathers' perceptions of available financial support. This finding is perhaps unsurprising given the extent of support families tend to provide their incarcerated loved ones [29,38], which may garner expectations that this support will continue once released.…”

“…One of the factors that can help individuals overcome these barriers to reentry is receiving support from family [10,[28][29][30][31][32]. Anywhere between 66% and 92% of people leaving prison depend on their family immediately following release for both emotional (e.g., advice, demonstrations of love) and tangible, or instrumental, support (e.g., assistance with practical tasks) [32].…”

“…Of particular relevance to the current study, families also provide financial support. Some estimates suggest that more than 92% of formerly incarcerated individuals received cash assistance from family members [29,38]. This support is crucial, especially because many formerly incarcerated individuals have limited resources of their own.…”

“…This focus is the result of data constraints; respondents who had recidivated were not asked about their perception of available financial support from family. As a conceptual matter, being incarcerated does not preclude individuals from receiving financial support, or perceiving that such support is available, from their families (see, for example, [29,38]). Future research should work to understand familial support along the full spectrum of incarceration and reentry.…”

Strain During Reentry: A Test of General Strain Theory Using a Sample of Adult Former Prisoners

“…GST asserts that certain strains, such as events or conditions disliked by the individual, increase the likelihood of crime. As a general theory, this theory has been applied in empirical tests that focus on both youth (e.g., Mazerolle & Piquero, 1998; Paternoster & Mazerolle, 1994) and adult samples (e.g., Liu, Miller, et al, 2019), males (e.g., Liu, Visher et al, 2019; Zweig et al, 2014) and females (e.g., Broidy & Agnew, 1997; Liu, Miller, et al, 2019; Liu, Sun et al, 2019), and strain from different contexts such as school (e.g., Agnew & White, 1992), neighborhood (e.g., Greenberger et al, 2000), and family (e.g., Liu & Visher, 2021a). Moreover, researchers can use the GST mechanism to illustrate how criminal behavior results from stress due to a marginalized social identity or disadvantaged life context.…”