Stress and Hardship after Prison

Western, Bruce; Braga, Anthony A.; Davis, Jaclyn; Sirois, Catherine

doi:10.1086/681301

Cited by 347 publications

(390 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The offense profile, criminal history, level of risk, and demographic characteristics of the BRS sample are similar to those for the Boston-area reentry population as a whole, suggesting little nonrandom selection based on observable characteristics (39). After release, the 1-y rate of reincarceration in the BRS sample (22%) was the same as that for the state's whole reentry population (44).…”

Section: Study Retention In a Cohort Of Prison Releaseesmentioning

confidence: 64%

Study retention as bias reduction in a hard-to-reach population

Western

Braga

Hureau

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Collecting data from hard-to-reach populations is a key challenge for research on poverty and other forms of extreme disadvantage. With data from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS), we document the extreme marginality of released prisoners and the related difficulties of study retention and analysis. Analysis of the BRS data yields three findings. First, released prisoners show high levels of "contact insecurity," correlated with social insecurity, in which residential addresses and contact information change frequently. Second, strategies for data collection are available to sustain very high rates of study participation. Third, survey nonresponse in highly marginal populations is strongly nonignorable, closely related to social and economic vulnerability. The BRS response rate of 94% over a 1-y follow-up period allows analysis of hypothetically high nonresponse rates. In this setting, nonresponse attenuates regression estimates in analyses of housing insecurity, drug use, and unemployment. These results suggest that in the analysis of very poor and disadvantaged populations, methods that maximize study participation reduce bias and yield data that can usefully supplement large-scale household or administrative data collections. Under current conditions of historically high imprisonment rates, incarceration has become a regular part of the hardship associated with American poverty (4, 5). Men and women who go to prison present a range of co-occurring disadvantages and vulnerabilities that make them difficult to contact or unwilling to participate in research studies. Involvement in crime and the criminal justice system also makes study subjects elusive for researchers. As a result, follow-up studies of the formerly incarcerated have suffered from high rates of attrition that are likely correlated with outcomes of key interest. The incarcerated population has been called "invisible men" because of their underenumeration in social survey estimates of socioeconomic well-being (6). Because of their deep marginality in social and economic life, invisibility in social science data collection also extends to those who have moved from incarceration to communities.We explore survey nonresponse in a highly disadvantaged population using data from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS), a small longitudinal survey of newly released prisoners. Earlier longitudinal studies of released prisoners suffered from 30% to 60% attrition over a 1-to 2-y follow-up period (7,8). In contrast, the BRS followed Massachusetts state prisoners through the first year of prison release, achieving a response rate of 94%.The unusually high response rate allows us to explore three main challenges to research and data collection in highly disadvantaged populations. First, we document extreme social insecurity in the BRS sample that is closely associated with a high level of contact insecurity-the frequent changing of residential addresses and phone numbers that makes nonresponse more likely. Second, we describe a variety of strategies for data collection tha...

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Section: Study Retention In a Cohort Of Prison Releaseesmentioning

confidence: 64%

Study retention as bias reduction in a hard-to-reach population

Western

Braga

Hureau

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

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“…Perhaps the lack of evidence-based programs stems from the disconnect between the theoretical advancements in the mechanisms of desistance and the application to policy and practice (McNeill 2006, Weaver 2014. Ample evidence from reentry scholarship reveals various policy-and practice-related obstacles that individuals encounter as they return home (Harris et al 2010, Pager 2008, Visher & Travis 2003, Western et al 2015; however, despite significant overlap with desistance scholarship, these streams of research have developed largely independently. In sum, results from available research suggest that to encourage desistance we need to think about not only how we define successful desistance and how offenders change but also about changing criminal justice policies and practices.…”

Section: Linking Theory and Research With Policy And Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Desistance from Offending in the Twenty-First Century

Bersani

Doherty

2018

Annu. Rev. Criminol.

133

113

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After decades of relative obscurity, research on desistance from offending has experienced an exponential, and much warranted, escalation in attention. This precipitous growth is motivated by the timely alignment of theory, data, and method that characterized the opening of the twenty-first century. Despite the growth of the field, fundamental questions remain. This chapter provides a focused review of key twenty-first-century theoretical and methodological developments on desistance as well as a pointed discussion of critical issues. After outlining the current definitions and longitudinal trends of desistance, we discuss contemporary theories and the studies that inform these theories. We use an organizational schema situating theories in terms of the primacy with which they place structural opportunities or subjective motivations in their explanations of the transition away from offending. We conclude by presenting avenues for advancing research in the areas of definitions, theoretical testing, and bridging the research-policy divide.

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“…Some experience acute stress and anxiety (Western et al 2015). Others struggle to overcome the trauma of solitary confinement (Gawande 2009).…”

Section: The Cumulative Risk Of Imprisonmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographic Variation in the Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment and Parental Imprisonment in the United States

Muller

Wildeman

2016

Demography

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This article reports estimates of the cumulative risk of imprisonment and parental imprisonment for demographic groups in four regions and four states. Regional and state-level cumulative risks were markedly higher for African Americans and Latinos than for whites. African Americans faced the highest cumulative risks of imprisonment in the Midwest, Northeast, and two southern states. Latinos were most likely to serve time in state prison in the West, where their cumulative risk was comparable to that of African Americans. Latino children had a relatively high risk of having a parent imprisoned in the Northeast as well. Racial disparities in the cumulative risk of imprisonment and parental imprisonment did not increase linearly with increases in the cumulative risk for all groups.

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Stress and Hardship after Prison

Cited by 347 publications

References 43 publications

Study retention as bias reduction in a hard-to-reach population

Study retention as bias reduction in a hard-to-reach population

Desistance from Offending in the Twenty-First Century

Geographic Variation in the Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment and Parental Imprisonment in the United States

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