The U.S. is the world's "leading jailer" with both the highest incarceration rate and the largest number of prisoners. Each year more than 700,000 inmates are released from prison and re-enter their communities. The majority of prisoners who are released from prison lack the necessary education, work experience, and life skills to successfully reintegrate back into society. One alternative to the retributive standard of justice used in the United States is a restorative justice strategy. A restorative approach to prisoner reintegration seeks to reestablish community support and acceptance for criminal offenders in order to allow them to become beneficial members of society. The literature on prisoner re-entry and reintegration suggests that the formerly incarcerated are more apt to successfully re-enter society when they attain education and employment and maintain familial and community associations. Presently, there is a lack of knowledge about what the formerly incarcerated experience after they are released from prison and participate in post-secondary education. The central research question for this qualitative multi-case study was: What effect has participation in higher education for the formerly incarcerated had on their experiences of reintegration back into their communities? The study further examined the barriers to higher education encountered, the social and human capital attained, and former prisoners' experiences during both incarceration and higher education. Six participants were invited to tell their life stories in order to make meaning of their experiences as both prisoners and as higher education students. One of the life stories was an auto-ethnographic account of the researcher's own experience as both a former inmate and, presently, a doctoral candidate. Qualitative interviews were used to collect data from the other participants. Life-story and phenomenological methods were employed to collect and analyze these data. A cross-case analysis was conducted to compare and contrast the individual cases. Findings indicate that participating in higher education had a positive impact on the reintegration experience of those formerly incarcerated individuals that participated in the study. The participant's life-stories suggest that higher education played an important role in restoring and creating relationships within the community, and enhanced their human and social capital. DEDICATION This study is dedicated to all the courageous formerly incarcerated people that are participating or have participated in post-secondary education after their incarceration. Their perseverance and commitment toward the goal of achieving a college/university degree is truly extraordinary. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research would not have been possible if my good friend and the finest police officer in San Diego, Sergeant Jeff Pace, had not believed in me and supported my efforts to start this research. He encouraged me to examine with an experienced eye the effects of incarceration and the possibilities with alt...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.