The Boston Reentry Study: Extensions and Analysis

波士顿再入研究：扩展和分析

• 批准号: 1259013
• 负责人: Bruce Western
• 金额: $ 19.27万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-04-01 至 2015-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1259013&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Boston; Reentry; Study; Extensions; Analysis

NSF 1259013Bruce WesternJanuary 30, 2013Under what conditions will men and women released from prison find work, unite with their families, and desist from crime? As incarceration - concentrated among the most disadvantaged - has climbed to historically high levels, these questions have become basic to understanding contemporary crime and poverty. The Boston Reentry Study aims to study the transition from prison to community by collecting data on former Massachusetts state prisoners, newly-released to the Boston area. Support from NSF expands the study sample from 60 to 100 respondents. The data collection has two main parts. First, a series of interviews is conducted with prisoners who are within a month of release to the Boston area. They are interviewed five times over 12 months, both in prison and after release. The sample includes parolees, probationers, and those who have completed sentences (a largely unstudied population). Second, the project will assess attrition and greatly expand the utility of the survey data by linking to administrative records from the Department of Correction (DOC). DOC records provide information on criminal history, prison conduct and programming, and risk assessment. Respondent data may also be linked to Unemployment Insurance and MassHealth records.Studying the transition from prison to community is particularly challenging because the formerly-incarcerated are an acutely disadvantaged, hard-to-reach population that are only loosely connected to stable households. The Boston Reentry Study has two key objectives: to sustain a high rate of study retention over the course of a year of follow-up with released prisoners, and to explain the reentry process of released prisoners in the areas of employment, family life, and criminal desistance. While earlier studies of the formerly incarcerated were marred by high rates of attrition and other under-coverage, the Boston Reentry Study expects to maintain a high rate of retention in four ways: with interview incentives, regular phone check-ins with respondents, interviews with proxies, and the use of place-based contacts in the community. We also expect the main sources of criminal desistance to arise from stable households, steady employment, and the formal institutional supports of social programs and community supervision. In addition to asking in detail about criminal involvement, education and programming, and employment, the study surveys delve into three areas beyond the reach of previous data collections on prison reentry: ties to families and children, patterns of households and residential mobility, and prison climate.The great scale of US incarceration has made the penal system a key institutional influence on many dimensions of socioeconomic disadvantage. High rates of incarceration have had far-reaching effects on poor urban communities, but the scientific challenge is substantial. Because they are typically weakly attached to households but closely connected to penal and other institutions, released prisoners are commonly overlooked and undercounted in studies of urban inequality and poverty. Understanding an acutely disadvantaged population that is jointly at risk of social and economic failure and under-enumeration, is thus a key task for the analysis of contemporary urban poverty.

NSF 1259013布鲁斯·韦斯特2013年1月30日 出狱的男女在什么条件下会找到工作、与家人团聚并停止犯罪？ 随着监禁（集中在最弱势群体中）已攀升至历史最高水平，这些问题已成为理解当代犯罪和贫困的基础。波士顿重返社会研究旨在通过收集新释放到波士顿地区的前马萨诸塞州囚犯的数据来研究从监狱到社区的过渡。 NSF 的支持将研究样本从 60 名受访者扩大到 100 名。数据收集有两个主要部分。首先，对释放到波士顿地区一个月内的囚犯进行一系列采访。他们在 12 个月内接受了五次面谈，包括在监狱中和释放后。样本包括假释犯、缓刑犯和已服完刑期的人（很大程度上未经研究的人群）。其次，该项目将评估人员流失情况，并通过与惩教部 (DOC) 的行政记录相链接，极大地扩展调查数据的效用。 DOC 记录提供有关犯罪历史、监狱行为和规划以及风险评估的信息。受访者数据也可能与失业保险和大众健康记录相关联。研究从监狱到社区的过渡尤其具有挑战性，因为以前被监禁的人是一个极度弱势、难以接触到的群体，他们与稳定的家庭只有松散的联系。波士顿重返社会研究有两个关键目标：在一年的随访过程中保持刑满释放囚犯的高学习保留率，并解释刑满释放囚犯在就业、家庭生活和犯罪方面的重返过程。虽然早期对前被监禁者的研究因高流失率和其他覆盖率不足而受到损害，但波士顿再入研究预计通过四种方式保持较高的保留率：访谈激励、定期与受访者电话联系、与代理人访谈以及使用社区中的本地联系人。我们还预计，稳定的家庭、稳定的就业以及社会项目和社区监督的正式制度支持是阻止犯罪的主要来源。除了详细询问犯罪参与、教育和规划以及就业情况外，该研究调查还深入研究了以前监狱重返监狱数据收集范围之外的三个领域：与家庭和儿童的联系、家庭和居住流动的模式以及监狱氛围。美国的大规模监禁使得刑罚制度对社会经济弱势的许多方面产生了关键的制度影响。高监禁率对贫困城市社区产生了深远影响，但科学挑战是巨大的。由于释放囚犯通常与家庭关系较弱，但与刑罚和其他机构关系密切，因此在城市不平等和贫困研究中，被释放的囚犯通常被忽视和低估。因此，了解共同面临社会和经济失败和统计不足风险的极度弱势群体是分析当代城市贫困的一项关键任务。