The Demography of Prisoner Reentry: Residential Moves & Changing Social Contexts

描述（由申请人提供）：监禁代表了生命历程中的一个重要变化，可以影响个人、家庭和社区的健康和福祉。在过去的二十年里，美国监狱和拘留所关押的人数急剧上升。每年有大量犯人出狱，这是一个重要的人口统计学现象，但研究人员对这一现象的关注相对较少，尽管政策制定者对让出狱犯人重返社会重新产生了兴趣。这些前囚犯中的许多人回到了非常不利的社区环境。失业率、贫困率和犯罪率高的社区，用于解决回归囚犯的健康和经济需求的资源可能较少，对前囚犯的社会控制水平较低，并使前囚犯有更大的机会重新使用药物。然而，人们离开监狱后住在哪里，他们多久搬家一次，或者哪些前囚犯经历了“向上”的居住流动，这些都知之甚少。确保稳定的住房是回归囚犯面临的最重要挑战之一，但之前没有研究调查过释放囚犯的住房流动性或生活安排。拟议的研究包括通过与密歇根州惩教局（MDOC）的一项独特安排收集行政数据，并前瞻性地分析返回假释犯的社区环境和生活安排。这一研究将填补以往文献在居住迁移、邻里环境和囚犯再入方面的重要空白，这些文献在很大程度上忽略了回归囚犯群体的邻里环境。具体目标如下：(1)对2003年从密歇根州监狱释放的三分之一的假释犯样本的三个来源的数据进行收集、清理、地理编码和合并：(a)前瞻性的、空间参考的MDOC行政记录，(b)来自MDOC行政记录和美国人口普查的文本级上下文数据，以及(c)密歇根州失业保险记录。(2)了解将假释者从监狱释放后分类到不同的(a)社区环境和(b)生活安排（例如，独居，与配偶，与其他家庭，在药物治疗中心或无家可归者收容所）的社会和制度过程。(3)了解影响假释归国者居住流动轨迹的社会和制度过程。拟议中的项目是探索性的，因为它是第一个收集和分析个人假释的丰富行政记录，并将这些记录与社区背景数据联系起来的项目，这是一项复杂的任务，需要时间和专业知识来编码和验证假释代理人案例记录中报告的信息。它还具有发展性，因为它代表了一个更大的研究轨迹的第一步，该研究旨在研究影响回归囚犯（一个特别脆弱的群体）健康和福利的社会条件。公共卫生相关性：监禁是生命历程中的一个重要变化，可能影响个人、家庭和社区的健康和福祉。关于返回囚犯的人数，他们住在哪里，他们搬家的频率，或者他们的社区如何影响他们的社会和经济成果，我们知之甚少。拟议的项目将审查刑事司法背景和人口背景因素在形成返回假释犯样本的邻里环境和居住流动性方面的作用。我们收集的数据还将使我们能够制定一项未来的提案，分析回归假释犯的健康结果和死亡率。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Incarceration represents an important change in the life course that can affect individuals' health and well- being, that of their families, and that of their communities. Over the last two decades, the number of individuals incarcerated in prisons and jails in the United States has risen dramatically. The large number of individuals exiting prison every year represents an important demographic phenomenon that has received relatively little attention from researchers, despite renewed interest among policy makers in integrating former prisoners back into society. Many of these ex-prisoners are returning to very disadvantaged neighborhood environments. Neighborhoods with high unemployment, poverty and crime rates are likely to have fewer resources that address the health and economic needs of returning prisoners, exert lower levels of social control over former prisoners, and present former prisoners with greater opportunities to return to substance use. Still, very little is known about where people live when they leave prison, how often they move, or which former prisoners experience "upward" residential mobility. Securing stable housing is one of the most important challenges for returning prisoners, yet no prior study has examined the residential mobility or living arrangements of released prisoners. The proposed research involves assembling administrative data through a unique arrangement with the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) and prospectively analyzing the neighborhood contexts and living arrangements of returning parolees. This research would fill an important gap in the literatures on residential mobility, neighborhood context, and prisoner reentry, which have largely ignored the neighborhood contexts of the returning prisoner population. The specific aims are as follows: (1) To assemble, clean, geocode, and merge data from three sources on a one-third sample of parolees released from Michigan prisons in 2003: (a) prospective, spatially-referenced MDOC administrative records, (b) tract-level contextual data from both MDOC administrative records and the U.S. Census, and (c) Michigan Unemployment Insurance records. (2) To understand the social and institutional processes that sort returning parolees into different (a) neighborhood environments and (b) living arrangements (e.g., living alone, with a spouse, with other family, in a drug treatment center, or in a homeless shelter) upon their release from prison. (3) To understand the social and institutional processes that shape the residential mobility trajectories of returning parolees. The proposed project is exploratory in that it is the first to assemble and analyze a rich set of administrative records on individual parolees and to link these records with data on neighborhood context, a complex task that requires the time and expertise to code and verify information reported in parole agent case notes. It is also developmental in that it represents the first step in a larger trajectory of research examining the social conditions that affect the health and well-being of returning prisoners, a particularly vulnerable population. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Incarceration represents an important change in the life course that can affect individuals' health and well- being, that of their families, and that of their communities. Very little is known about the population of returning prisoners, where they live, how often they move, or how their neighborhoods shape their social and economic outcomes. The proposed project will examine the role of criminal justice contexts and demographic background factors in shaping the neighborhood environments and residential mobility of a sample of returning parolees. The data we would assemble would also allow us to develop a future proposal analyzing the health outcomes and mortality of returning parolees.