Doctoral Dissertation Research: Community and Individual Responses to Ex-Offender Reentry

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Little is known about the effects of sex-offender legislation on communities and offenders. This research begins to fill this gap through a street-level ethnography of the communities and circumstances in which sex offenders live following release from prison. The co-principal investigator will conduct in-depth field research in the community over a period of nine months, including observations and unstructured interviews.This project will contribute to research on sex offenders and sex offender legislation by simultaneously examining a community adjusting to the presence of sex offenders, as well as studying ex-offenders' reentry experiences. Findings will shed light on sex-offender reentry, experiences of individuals living on the margins of society, stigmas regarding sex offenders, and discourse about the role of welfare and the criminal justice system.The broader impact of the project is enhanced knowledge of how government policy and other forces affect marginalized populations. This project will be disseminated as a richly detailed book as well as scholarly articles and conference presentations. Educational benefits of these products include their use as teaching tools in sociology, criminal justice, public policy, and ethnographic methodology. They will also be made available to policy makers and may enhance discussion about the intersections of criminal justice policy and social inequality.