The Boston Reentry Study: Extensions and Analysis

NSF 1259013布鲁斯·韦斯特2013年1月30日在什么条件下，从监狱释放的男女会找到工作，与家人团聚，并停止犯罪？ 随着监禁--集中在最弱势群体中--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本问题。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，研究从监狱到社区的过渡。来自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不到一个月的囚犯进行了一系列访谈。他们在12个月内接受了5次面谈，包括在监狱中和获释后。样本包括假释犯、缓刑犯和服刑期满者（大部分未研究的人群）。第二，该项目将评估自然减员情况，并通过与惩教部的行政记录相联系，大大扩大调查数据的效用。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。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严重弱势群体，难以接触到他们，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主要目标：在一年的随访过程中，对获释囚犯保持较高的学习保留率，并解释获释囚犯在就业、家庭生活和停止犯罪方面的重返社会过程。虽然早期对以前被监禁者的研究受到高流失率和其他覆盖不足的影响，但波士顿重返社会研究预计将通过四种方式保持高保留率：面试激励，定期与受访者进行电话登记，与代理人进行面试，以及在社区中使用基于地点的联系人。我们还预计，犯罪停止的主要来源来自稳定的家庭，稳定的就业，以及社会项目和社区监督的正式制度支持。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关于重返监狱的数据收集所无法触及的三个领域：与家庭和儿童的关系、家庭和居住流动模式以及监狱环境。美国监禁的大规模使刑罚系统成为影响社会经济不利因素的许多方面的关键制度。高监禁率对城市贫困社区产生了深远影响，但科学挑战是巨大的。由于获释囚犯与家庭的联系通常较弱，但与刑罚和其他机构的联系密切，因此他们在城市不平等和贫困研究中往往被忽视和低估。因此，了解一个共同面临社会和经济失败风险以及人口统计不足的严重弱势群体，是分析当代城市贫困的一项关键任务。

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.