Doctoral Dissertation Research: Re-entry organizations and the formally incarcerated

大规模监禁是美国的一个社会问题，它引起了人们对如何使大量前囚犯重新融入社会的关注，其中许多人已经服了很长的刑期，重新融入社会并重返劳动力市场。尽管大规模监禁的趋势似乎正在逆转，但仍有大量人离开监狱，必须努力重新进入社会。少数民族在这些返回的囚犯中占很大比例，特别是非洲裔美国人和拉丁美洲人。妇女也受到大规模监禁的影响;由于禁毒战争，毒品重罪定罪（除非暴力财产犯罪外）占女性囚犯人口的近80%（监狱中的妇女项目，2006年）。此外，正如学者们所表明的那样，犯罪记录带有社会污名，限制了从监狱返回的人的就业机会，当这些人是少数群体时，情况更是如此。前囚犯成功重返社会是一种社会公益，有利于全社会，因为它降低了未来犯罪的风险（和重新监禁的成本），并有助于建立一个更安全、更不平等的社会。 本研究是对俄亥俄州克利夫兰市一家私人再就业组织的定性案例研究，旨在帮助理解再就业过程。主要的研究问题是：（1）重返组织是否有目的地为他们的客户提供社会和文化资本？这种经纪行为是如何发生的？2)以前被监禁的客户的性别是否影响组织如何以及如何促成社会和文化资本？如果是，如何做到？最后，3）这种社会和文化资本的中介对寻求重新融入社会的前监禁个人有什么影响？数据收集通过参与者民族志和采访那些谁利用重返组织和他们的个案工作者。这项研究的学术价值在于，它将阐明以前被监禁者重返社会的社会学过程，特别是重返社会组织对社会和文化资本的中介作用。研究结果应能为未来重返社会组织的未来方案拟订模式提供信息，还应影响资助这些组织的政府机构采取的政策。这项研究的结果将是有益的，不仅对重返社会领域，而且对组织试图重新融入任何污名化或边缘化的人口，如无家可归者，残疾人和难民。由于对性别问题的关注，这项研究也将有助于其他从事混合人口工作的组织，使它们更好地认识到“不分性别”政策的潜在缺陷。

Mass incarceration is a social problem in the U.S and it creates the concern of how to reintegrate a large number of former prisoners, many of whom have served lengthy sentences, back into society and back into the workforce. Even as the trend towards mass incarceration seems to be reversing, a large population of people remains who exit jails and must attempt to reenter society. Racial minorities represent a significant portion of these returning prisoners, notably African Americans and Latinos. Women also have also been affected by mass incarceration; as a result of the War on Drugs, drug felony convictions (in addition to non-violent property offenses) account for nearly 80 percent of the female inmate population (Women in Prison Project 2006). Furthermore, as scholars have demonstrated, there is a social stigma attached to a criminal record that serves to limit the job opportunities of people returning from prison, even more so, when those individuals are minorities. The successful reintegration of former prisoners is a social good that benefits all of society as it reduces the risk of future crime (and the cost of re-incarceration) and makes for a safer, less unequal society. This study is a qualitative case study of a private re-entry organization in Cleveland Ohio that will help understand the re-entry process.The proposed research is a qualitative case study of a private reentry organization in Cleveland, Ohio. The major research questions are: 1) Do reentry organizations purposefully broker social and cultural capital for their clientele? How does such brokerage occur? 2) Does the gender of the formerly incarcerated client affect how and what social and cultural capital is brokered by the organization? If so, how? And finally, 3) What is the impact of such brokerage of social and cultural capital on the formerly incarcerated individual who is seeking to reintegrate into society? Data were collected via participant ethnography and interviews with those who make use of the reentry organization and their caseworkers. The intellectual merit of this research is that it will illuminate the sociological processes of reentry of the formerly incarcerated particularly in relation to the brokerage of social and cultural capital by a reentry organization. The findings of the research should have the impact of informing future programming models for future reentry organizations and should also influence policies adopted by the governmental agencies that fund those organizations. The findings of this research will be useful, not only to the reentry field, but also to organizations attempting to reintegrate any stigmatized or marginalized population such as the homeless, the disabled, and refugees. Due to the focus on gender, this research will also be useful for other organizations that work with mixed populations by making them more cognizant of the potential pitfalls of "gender-neutral" policies.