Prisoner Reentry: Public Safety and Reintegration Challenges

Petersilia, Joan

doi:10.1177/0032885501081003004

Cited by 173 publications

(143 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

134

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…They proposed: the development of seamless systems between prison and the community, particularly in terms of health and employment; intensive preparation for release fostering independence; and the allocation of responsibility for reintegration from corrections agencies to community-based organisations to broker the relationship between prison and community. The combination of this work (Petersilia, 2001;Travis & Petersilia, 2001) and subsequent book (Petersilia, 2003) effectively laid out the research agenda for prison-to-community transition over the next decade; however, it would appear that most of the challenges remain unresolved and the same themes occur continuously throughout the literature.…”

Section: Understanding the Transition Experience Of The General Prisomentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In a critical essay, Petersilia (2001) flagged many of the key issues that still remain current for people leaving prison, including the unmet needs of parolees, a tendency for parole supervision to replace support services, the high risk of homelessness post-release, the destabilising impact on communities and neighbourhoods from large numbers of returning prisoners, the important role of employment and difficulty in finding work due to stigma and economic changes, the impact of incarceration on families, and parole revocation practices that "almost guarantee parolees failure" (2001, p. 372). Travis and Petersilia (2001) built on this work by calling for a reform agenda to abolish parole and replace it with specifically targeted transition support.…”

Section: Understanding the Transition Experience Of The General Prisomentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Hoping Against Hope: The Prison-to-Community Transition Experience of Men With Co-Occurring Severe Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorder

Denton¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This thesis explores the prison-to-community transition experience after short-term incarceration, from the perspective of men with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder in Queensland, Australia. A specific focus was to examine the impact of systems and structures on the individual experience of transition. Prior research has established that people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use are overrepresented in the Australian prisoner population. It is also known that transition from prison to community for the general custodial population is a time of vulnerability, with increased risk of substance use, homelessness, unemployment, reincarceration and post-release death. All of these risks are compounded for prisoners with co-occurring disorders who are also at risk of a range of poor criminal justice outcomes and losing contact with mental health services after release.Review of the literature indicates a tendency for research to focus on recidivism as an outcome and emphasise either individual risk behaviour or social and structural factors influencing prison-to-community transition. Interventions during transition for the current population have traditionally been based on the criminalisation hypothesis, with a focus on increased provision of mental health services in prison and an emphasis on continuity of care in the community. There is a growing recognition in the international literature that the issues are much broader than mental illness; however, there is a lack of clarity as to how to respond to the complex needs of this population. Research exploring the perspective of men with cooccurring severe mental illness and substance use disorder during their prison-to-community transition experience has rarely been undertaken.The conceptual framework developed for this study shifts the emphasis away from recidivism towards recovery and wellbeing through a lens of individual action, but only in the context of the potential for systems and structures to impact on the ability of individuals to exercise agency. A qualitative method was used comprising repeat in-depth interviews with 18 men: within 1 month prior to leaving prison, within 2 weeks post-release and at 3 months postrelease. Three themes characterised the transition experience of participants: "hoping against hope"; "adrift in freedom"; and "the slippery slope". Participants reported leaving the predictable and routine life in prison where they hoped for a better life after release, to an uncertain, unstable and isolated environment in the community, eventually sliding into drug use, chaos and despair. The risk environment framework (Rhodes, 2009) and structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) were employed to understand how participants were caught in a complex dynamic between their individual risk behaviour and broader structural risk iii environments. This thesis proposes that a web of interrelated factors contributed to participants in the study as "ambivalent agents" who were suspended between the two worlds of priso...

show abstract

Section: Understanding the Transition Experience Of The General Prisomentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Understanding the Transition Experience Of The General Prisomentioning

confidence: 99%

Hoping Against Hope: The Prison-to-Community Transition Experience of Men With Co-Occurring Severe Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorder

Denton¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Determinate sentencing means automatic release (Petersilia, 2001). Today, indeterminate sentencing and discretionary release have been replaced with determinate sentencing in states, although Walker (2001) proposed that changing or abolishing parole would not reduce serious crime.…”

Section: Who Is In Prison?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the abolishment of parole or the reduction of parole authorities' discretion, the controlled system of earned release for selected inmates is replaced with automatic release for nearly all inmates (Petersilia, 2001). Instead of an adversarial system focused on punishment, it should rather be one of restorative justice that "emphasizes dialogue, negotiation, and the reestablishment of a positive relationship between victim and offender" (Walker, 1998, p. 224).…”

Section: Who Is In Prison?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of parental risk factors on child outcomes : examining parental incarceration within a multiple-risk model.

Hyppolite¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…These needs may be considerable for the individual parolee and may include, but are not limited to, family relationships, housing, employment, education, substance abuse and mental health treatment, and life skills training. Unfortunately, there is strong evidence to suggest that many inmates leave prison unprepared to meet the challenges of life in the community (Petersilia, 2001;Austin, 2001). Within the past decade federal funds have been appropriated to operate drug and reentry courts and other reentry programs for the express purpose of helping prisoners reintegrate into society.…”

Section: List Of Tablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rural-urban residency, treatment motivation, and health status as factors related to dropout from correctional substance abuse treatment : a policy perspective.

Block¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Prisoner Reentry: Public Safety and Reintegration Challenges

Cited by 173 publications

References 12 publications

Hoping Against Hope: The Prison-to-Community Transition Experience of Men With Co-Occurring Severe Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorder

Hoping Against Hope: The Prison-to-Community Transition Experience of Men With Co-Occurring Severe Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorder

The impact of parental risk factors on child outcomes : examining parental incarceration within a multiple-risk model.

Rural-urban residency, treatment motivation, and health status as factors related to dropout from correctional substance abuse treatment : a policy perspective.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About