Desistance, persistence, resilience and resistance: A qualitative exploration of how Black fathers with criminal records navigate employer discrimination

Abstract

While research suggests a growing proclivity amongst contemporary fathers towards emotional involvement and child caregiving, studies indicate that most men still experience unrelenting pressure to provide financially for their family. For some fathers, the ability to spend time with their children is contingent on financial provision. Fathering, therefore, can be dependent on employment. The intersection of Blackness, maleness, and a criminal record, however, often results in employer discrimination, which hinders reentering Black men’s ability to secure legitimate revenue streams and achieve fathering expectations. In response to these barriers, many men agentically create opportunities for themselves in order to provide for their families. Framed using Sites of Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth, the current study draws from qualitative data and adds to the literature by focusing on the act of hurdling rather than the hurdles faced upon reentry. Findings demonstrate how hustling upon reentry is not a display of persistent criminal character but, rather, reflects a resilient response to systemic racism and blocked opportunities. The discussion on policy implications is led by participant suggestions on how to deter criminal activity while providing opportunities for men with criminal records to support their families.

“The biggest thing you can rob is somebody's time”: Exploring how the carceral state bankrupts fathers through temporal debt

“…The intersection of the participants’ race, place, and gender contributed to persistent police hypersurveillance, employer discrimination, and a lack of educational opportunities and resources (Henson, 2022). Therefore, despite being incentivized to “be there” for their children, these contextual factors, and participants’ actions, led all the fathers in the current sample to be incarcerated for a period of their children's lives.…”

Revising the Critical Gaze: An Inversion of Criminological Theories to Center Race, Racism, and Resistance

“…A criminal record is not just an artifact of punishment but a prolonged form of punishment, straining opportunities for employment, housing, education, and food. Individuals turn to the streets for reliable and accessible resources to support themselves and their families, when lacking the means to enter the mainstream workforce (Henson 2020). Prison communication barriers, such as visitation restrictions and costs of phone calls, attenuate the relationships between those incarcerated and people in the community (Christian 2005).…”

“…Economic exclusion acutely impacts minoritized individuals and reverberates throughout families and communities, and over generations. Racial/ethnic communities have adapted in a variety of ways: establishing community enclaves, investing in informal economies of support sustenance, novel resilience techniques, and other creative adaptations to economic strain (Lomnitz and Sheinbaum 2004;Henson 2020;Merton 1938;Miller et al 2015;Payne 2011). CEAT posits mobility, broadly conceived, as a practice of pioneering and liberation from restrictive and oppressive environments.…”

“…Specifically, female gang membership is regarded as "bargaining with patriarchy" for resources, as a response to circumstantial deprivation formed by experiences of gender, race, and social class (Hughes et al 2019). Other forms of crime like theft, robbery, and drug dealing are methods of navigating poverty, lack of employment opportunities, and low wages (Dunlap et al 2010;Henson 2020). The structural disadvantages that influence the early stages of life can have repercussions that maintain an individual's positionality in later stages of life, fueling further social structure induced criminal participation.…”

Black fathers' personal histories, worldviews, and fathering behaviors

“…Although racial socialization is protective and promotive of Black youth development (Neblett et al, 2012), not recognizing Black boys as children still effectively dehumanizes them (Dumas & Nelson, 2016). This dehumanization extends into adulthood and may be related to significant constraints on Black men's lives (e.g., Assari, Lankarani, & Caldwell, 2018) and structural barriers to parenting such as disproportionate incarceration, lack of access to services, and criminalization of poverty (Henson, 2021; Threlfall & Kohl, 2015). It is similarly notable that this dehumanization of Black personhood contributes to a body of scholarship that is only beginning to address the needs of middle‐ and upper‐income, LGBTQ+, or other diverse Black fathers (Johnson & Young, 2016).…”