The Boston Reentry Study: Extensions and Analysis

在什么条件下，出狱的男女才能找到工作，与家人团聚，不再犯罪？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。波士顿再入研究旨在通过收集前马萨诸塞州囚犯的数据来研究从监狱到社区的过渡，这些囚犯最近被释放到波士顿地区。美国国家科学基金会的支持将研究样本从60个扩展到100个。数据收集主要有两个部分。首先，对即将在一个月内被释放到波士顿地区的囚犯进行一系列采访。他们在12个月里接受了5次采访，包括在狱中和获释后。样本包括假释犯、缓刑犯和刑满释放者（大部分未被研究的人群）。其次，该项目将评估人员流失，并通过与惩教部（DOC）的行政记录相联系，大大扩大调查数据的效用。司法部的记录提供了有关犯罪历史、监狱行为和规划以及风险评估的信息。被访者的数据也可能与失业保险和大众健康记录相关联。研究从监狱到社区的转变尤其具有挑战性，因为以前被监禁的人是非常弱势的，难以接触到的人群，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关键目标：在对释放囚犯的一年跟踪调查中保持较高的学习保留率，并解释释放囚犯在就业、家庭生活和阻止犯罪方面的重返社会过程。虽然早期对被监禁者的研究受到高流失率和其他报道不足的影响，但波士顿再入研究希望通过四种方式保持高保留率：访谈激励、定期与受访者进行电话检查、与代理人进行访谈以及在社区中使用基于地点的联系。我们还预计，协助犯罪的主要来源将来自稳定的家庭、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，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、家庭和住宅流动模式以及监狱气候。美国大规模的监禁使得刑罚制度在社会经济劣势的许多方面成为一个关键的制度影响。高监禁率对贫穷的城市社区产生了深远的影响，但科学上的挑战是巨大的。由于他们通常与家庭关系较弱，但与刑事和其他机构关系密切，因此在对城市不平等和贫困的研究中，释放的囚犯通常被忽视和低估。因此，了解共同面临社会和经济失败和人口不足风险的极度弱势人口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.