Research/Document Library

Prisoner Reentry in Perspective

This paper shows that the size of the returning prisoner and parole populations has increased, but that funding for supervision has not kept pace. It shows that there have been marginal changes in the composition of the population of reentering inmates that can make reentry more difficult than it has been, but at the same time, we have yet to observe in the aggregate data many of the adverse consequences predicted. So while inmates reentering society now are more likely (1) to have failed at parole previously; (2) not to have participated in educational and vocational programs in prison; and (3) to have served longer sentences, which attenuates ties to families, it may also be the case that large numbers of persons who enter prison for the first time in their lives do not return to prison. And, while returns from prison are concentrated in a comparatively small number of urban communities, these communities may be fairly diverse and include both areas of concentrated poverty as well as working-class communities. Finally, within the metropolitan areas to which ex-prisoners are returning, access to jobs and competition with welfare leavers for skill-appropriate jobs may impose further constraints on the capacity of communities to reintegrate ex-prisoners.

Available online

http://www.urban.org/

Author(s)

James P. Lynch and William J. Sabol

Date

September 2001

Publisher

The Urban Institute