A Life History Perspective on Social Integration after Prison

出狱后社会融合的生活史视角

• 批准号: 1424089
• 负责人: Bruce Western
• 金额: $ 22.86万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1424089&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Life; History; Perspective; Social; Integration

SES-1424089Bruce WesternHarvard UniversityEach year, over 700,000 men and women are released from prison, mostly to poor inner-city communities. This proposal describes an innovative analysis conducted under the auspices of the Boston Reentry Study (BRS); a longitudinal survey of 122 Massachusetts state prisoners newly-released to the Boston area. The project will use BRS interviews -- nearly 700 interviews with men and women released from prison and members of their family' to produce small biographies recording the life histories of each of the BRS survey respondents. Combining quantitative survey measures of housing, employment, and family relationships in the year after incarceration with qualitative life history narratives allows a unique analysis of how individual biographies shape the transition from prison to community. The research will explore how the process of community return is associated with individuals' histories of family relationships, institutionalization, and their sources of material and social support.Despite the importance of the topic, research on the formerly-incarcerated is challenging for conventional quantitative and qualitative approaches. Survey-based studies find it difficult to sample from a hard-to-reach population and measure the process of transition from prison to community. Qualitative field studies find it challenging to fully reflect the great heterogeneity of the formerly-incarcerated population. The project will use analytical transcription of nearly 700 interviews to produce searchable narrative life histories for each of the 123 BRS respondents. Unlike prior quantitative research, the current approach will yield far more detailed information, particularly about early life experiences and the sequencing of major life events. And unlike ethnographic research, the relatively large sample size represents the real diversity of those leaving prison, from the young men involved in drug dealing and serious violence, to the older men and women who have struggled over a lifetime with drug addiction and mental illness. In addition, by tracing life histories to early childhood, the project goes beyond much of the recent work on prisoner reentry "quantitative and qualitative" by linking developmental experiences to adult transitions from prison to community.The project promises three broader impacts. First, the research will provide methods that can be useful to researchers of hard-to-reach populations for which traditional methods may be poorly suited. The current study synthesizes quantitative and qualitative methods providing data collection at scale that facilitates understanding of the life history and processes of integration for those at the extreme margins of social and economic life. Second, the problem of prisoner reentry is also now a question of key policy significance. Several recent and significant criminal justice reform efforts have focused on former prisoners and the conditions of community supervision. The current research will thus inform the policy process and criminal justice reform more generally. Finally, the proposed research, like the BRS project more generally, is conducted by a closely-knit research team comprised largely of students and other young researchers. The laboratory environment of the project provides a unique training opportunity where researchers are actively involved in all phases of the study design, data collection and analysis.

哈佛大学每年有超过70万名男女从监狱获释，其中大部分被释放到贫民区。该提案描述了在波士顿重返研究（BRS）的主持下进行的创新分析;对新近释放到波士顿地区的122名马萨诸塞州囚犯进行的纵向调查。 该项目将使用BRS访谈--对从监狱释放的男女及其家庭成员进行近700次访谈，以制作小型传记，记录BRS调查受访者的生活史。结合定量调查措施的住房，就业和家庭关系，在一年后的监禁与定性的生活史叙述允许一个独特的分析个人传记如何塑造从监狱到社区的过渡。该研究将探讨重返社区的过程如何与个人的家庭关系史、机构化史及其物质和社会支持来源相关联，尽管这一主题很重要，但对以前被监禁者的研究对传统的定量和定性方法具有挑战性。基于调查的研究发现，很难从难以接触到的人群中取样，并衡量从监狱向社区过渡的过程。定性实地研究发现，很难充分反映以前被监禁人口的巨大异质性。该项目将使用近700次访谈的分析转录，为123名BRS受访者中的每一位制作可搜索的叙述性生活史。与之前的定量研究不同，目前的方法将产生更详细的信息，特别是关于早期生活经历和主要生活事件的顺序。与人种学研究不同的是，相对较大的样本量代表了出狱者的真实的多样性，从参与毒品交易和严重暴力的年轻男性到一生都在与毒瘾和精神疾病作斗争的老年男性和女性。此外，通过追溯生命史至幼儿期，该项目超越了最近关于囚犯重返社会的“定量和定性”工作，将发展经历与成年人从监狱到社区的过渡联系起来。首先，这项研究将提供一些方法，这些方法对研究传统方法可能不太适合的难以接触人群的研究人员有用。目前的研究综合了定量和定性方法，提供了大规模的数据收集，有助于了解那些处于社会和经济生活极端边缘的人的生活史和融合过程。第二，囚犯重返社会问题也是一个具有重要政策意义的问题。最近的几项重大刑事司法改革工作侧重于前囚犯和社区监督的条件。因此，目前的研究将为政策进程和刑事司法改革提供更广泛的信息。最后，拟议中的研究，更一般地说，像BRS项目一样，是由一个主要由学生和其他年轻研究人员组成的紧密联系的研究团队进行的。该项目的实验室环境提供了独特的培训机会，研究人员积极参与研究设计，数据收集和分析的所有阶段。