This article explores the impact of romantic relationships on the reentry experiences of female ex-offenders. Although attachment to a prosocial spouse is an important social bond in the desistance of male offenders, male and female offenders have different offending and life experiences and are likely to draw romantic partners from very different groups. This article addresses this issue through an analysis of qualitative interviews with 49 female ex-offenders and their romantic partners. These women most often have relationships with recovering drug users and/or ex-offenders, not purely prosocial men or women. These relationships are dynamic and may be both destructive and conventionalizing at different points in time. Many women also consciously avoid romantic relationships, at least temporarily. These patterns of romantic relationships for female ex-offenders add to our understanding of the role of social bonds in desistance. This article emphasizes the need to look at relationships as processes rather than static events and to expand the definition of prosocial partners.
While much recent attention has been focused on the impact of incarceration on ex-prisoners, less has been paid to the general public’s informal attitudes and responses to crime and offenders. This article begins to fill this void by exploring the impact of individual and neighborhood characteristics on attitudes toward crime and prisoner reentry. The article is based on two phases of data collection. During phase one, residents of four Massachusetts communities were surveyed about their attitudes and experiences with crime and prisoner reentry. During phase two, qualitative interviews and participant observation were used to explore how crime and reentry issues are framed across community context. The survey data suggest both that individual-level predictors (e.g. political affiliation, sex, parenthood, and several crime-related factors) of punitiveness are significant, and that there is a neighborhood context to these beliefs. The focus in analyzing the qualitative data is on two contrasting communities. These data suggest varying ways of framing ‘the crime problem’ that help explain the neighborhood context of these attitudes. Specifically, a localized framing shapes less punitive attitudes, while a focus on a general crime problem contributes to greater punitiveness.
While many prisoners share the public and policy makers’ concerns about returning to their former neighborhood when they are released from prison, recently released ex-prisoners often do not have the resources to move to a new neighborhood. Using multiple in-depth interviews with female ex-prisoners in Chicago, the author addresses how these women frame their often disadvantaged and racially segregated neighborhood contexts so that they are consistent with their desire to desist from offending. While some women believed they should avoid old neighborhoods, many reframed their neighborhood context as a neutral or positive force, both for them and the community. Three common frames emerged in the data, all of which emphasize the women’s self-efficacy and agency: drugs are unavoidable and so neighborhood is irrelevant, there is comfort in familiarity, and their pasts can be used to help and inspire others in their community. In addition, the author addresses the ways in which these frames are influenced by their involvement in drug treatment programming and by race, class, and gender. These findings suggest a need to expand how research and policy address the neighborhood context of prisoner reentry.
A common narrative about crime in the contemporary United States is that offenders are primarily young black men living in poor urban neighborhoods committing violent and drug-related crimes. There is also a local context to community, crime, and fear that influences this narrative. In this article, I address how narratives of crime and criminals play out differently within particular places. The article is based on participant observation and interviews conducted in two high-crime Bostonarea communities. Although both communities are concerned with stereotypical offenders, there are differential community constructions of crime, formed through interactions between crime narratives and place identities. In one, crime is a community problem, in which both offenders and victims are community members. In the other, outsiders commit crime against community members. Media portrayals of crime and community, community race and class identities, and concerns over neighborhood change all contribute to place-specific framing of ''the crime problem.'' These frames, in turn, shape both intergroup dynamics and support for criminal justice policy.
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