Boston Re-Entry Survey

描述（由申请人提供）：囚犯返回社区对城市贫困、家庭人口、公共卫生和犯罪学的研究越来越重要。现在，每年大约有73万人从州和联邦监狱获释，绝大多数人回到了高犯罪率的弱势社区。虽然与作为当代城市贫困特征的经济劣势、家庭不稳定和健康状况不佳密切相关，但利用调查或行政记录收集的标准数据往往无法接触到曾经被监禁的人。这个拟议中的项目名为“波士顿再入调查”（Boston Reentry Survey），研究囚犯重返城市社区的情况。在最一般的层面上，该项目旨在了解高度边缘人口与主流社会机构的联系，特别是家庭、就业和住房。累犯和犯罪参与是社会脱离的重要标志，尽管我们对居住流动性和住房安全、与家庭和子女的关系、收入和求职、健康状况和卫生服务的使用同样感兴趣。我们会在犯人释放前对他们进行纵向调查，然后在12个月的时间里定期进行调查。面谈数据将与行政记录以及定性和代理面谈联系起来，以补充关于难以捉摸和高风险人口的资料。这些记录将提供关于就业和收入以及卫生保健利用的额外证据。该项目将作为对前囚犯进行大规模纵向研究的试点。该研究的创新方法设计的关键目标是在一年的过程中保持高保留率。对于了解这一关键但难以接触到的人群的家庭、就业、住房和健康需求而言，研究参与者的高留存率至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The return of prisoners to their communities has become increasingly important for research on urban poverty, family demography, public health and criminology. About 730,000 people are now released from state and federal prison each year, returning overwhelmingly to high-crime neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage. Although closely involved with the economic disadvantage, family instability, and poor health that characterizes contemporary urban poverty, the formerly-incarcerated are often inaccessible with standard data collections using surveys or administrative records. The proposed project, the Boston Reentry Survey, studies the return of prisoners to urban neighborhoods. At the most general level, this project aims to understand the connection of a highly marginal population to mainstream social institutions, in particular to family, employment, and housing. Recidivism and criminal involvement are important markers of social detachment, though we are equally interested in residential mobility and housing security, relations with family and children, earnings and job seeking, and health status and use of health services. We will conduct a small longitudinal survey with inmates interviewed immediately before release, then periodically over a 12 month period. Interview data will be linked to administrative records, as well as qualitative and proxy interviews, to supplement the information on an elusive and high-risk population. These records will provide additional evidence on employment and earnings, and health care utilization. The project will serve as a pilot for a large-scale longitudinal study of former prisoners. The study's innovative methodology is designed with the key objective of high rates of retention over the course of a year. High retention of formerly incarcerated study participants is essential to understanding the family, employment, housing, and health needs of this critical, but hard-to-reach population. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Little is known about the employment, housing, family, and health needs of released prisoners due to their detachment from mainstream social institutions and inaccessibility with standard data collection. We propose a methodology which is innovative in its comprehensive approach to following newly-released prisoners using a longitudinal survey, interviews with family members, and linkage to prison, employment, and health records. The project will contribute to the methodology for studying a significant and hard-to-reach population, promising new data on the health and social dynamics of the formerly-incarcerated and the poor communities in which they are embedded.