Making sense of Going Straight: Personal Accounts of Male Ex-Prisoners in Hong Kong

Adorjan, Michael; Chui, Wing Hong

doi:10.1093/bjc/azr093

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Sometimes the people at the residential home treat me to a meal. I have no choice, no one in my family is willing to accept me … After a year I'll have to leave … Maybe I will go back to living on the streets.Young returning ex‐prisoners face the same obstacles as adults in Hong Kong with regards to securing affordable housing and stable employment (Adorjan and Chui ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, as discussed above, ex‐prisoners must return and adapt to the highly‐competitive Hong Kong society. Adorjan and Chui's (, ) interviews with a sample of adult ex‐prisoners in Hong Kong found that the fast‐paced lifestyle and the materialistic and competitive culture of Hong Kong made re‐entry and desistance from crime particularly challenging. Formerly‐incarcerated individuals found getting stable employment difficult, especially with the influx of Mainlanders as competitors in the labour market, and there was a lack of government assistance in helping to provide housing against rising rents.…”

Section: Challenges Of Re‐entrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Challenges Facing Young Men Returning from Incarceration in Hong Kong

Chui

Cheng

2014

Howard J Crim Justice

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While prisoner re‐entry has garnered increasing interest in Western scholarship, scarce attention has been paid to the situation in Hong Kong, despite it possessing one of the higher imprisonment rates in Asia, and its reliance on custodial sentences to rehabilitate young offenders. Drawing upon the experiences of a sample of formerly‐incarcerated young males, this article informs on how young ex‐prisoners receive little familial/social support, and how finding legitimate employment is difficult for returning ex‐prisoners in Hong Kong. Young ex‐prisoners perceive themselves to be facing the challenges of re‐entry alone. Implications and recommendations for government and social services are discussed.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges Of Re‐entrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges Facing Young Men Returning from Incarceration in Hong Kong

Chui

Cheng

2014

Howard J Crim Justice

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“…More seriously, any positive effects of religious programs may well be the byproducts of qualitatively "easier" inmates self-selecting into the program while being offered a richer menu of human contact and services. As a result, much of the research on faith-based programs is still qualitative and even sometimes anecdotal [62][63][64][65][66][67][68].…”

Section: The Need For More Research On Faith-based Prison Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to address this gap in research, a number of studies utilizing exploratory "unstructured life-history narratives" have been produced and that help identify and investigate the subjective experiences of desisters, by way of "cognitive shifts", "identity changes", and attempts at "making good" described by successful ex-offenders [61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]. As demonstrated in this previous research, religiously-anchored "redemption narratives" provide desisters with an important spiritual "toolkit" necessary for coping with what criminologist John Braithwaite calls "shame management" [69].…”

Section: The Need For More Research On Faith-based Prison Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Resurgence of Religion in America’s Prisons

Hallett

Johnson

2014

Religions

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This article discusses the growing prominence of "faith-based" programs in American corrections and the historical context of penal regime change during periods of economic crisis. The article traces areas of overlap and divergence in recent discussions of penal reform in the U.S. The article suggests a new American penitentiary movement is emerging, noting central tenets of faith-based programs have salience for both conservatives and liberals: on the one hand, faith-based programs are largely paid for by church congregations and volunteers, which appeals to conservatives' desire to shrink government and get taxpayers out of the business of community building; on the other, faith-based programs demonstrate a recommitment to having at least some level of programming in prisons, which satisfies the left's view that community building and social capital ultimately lower recidivism. The paper documents several prominent faith-based correctional programs while articulating an agenda for research. Keywords

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The Spirituality of Carceral Citizenship: “Making Your Test Your Testimony”

Hallett

2023

Symbolic Interaction

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Through participant observation of the redemption‐focused identity work of formerly incarcerated citizens affiliated with an urban faith‐based nonprofit organization run by ex‐offenders, this paper examines religiously motivated desistance among eighteen male respondents who attribute lasting desistance to intense religiosity. Recent research portrays the “identity work” of criminal justice‐involved citizens as “narrative labor” fraught with capricious experiences of social rejection and “uncanny” patterns of discrimination and exclusion. Drawing from eight years of participant observation and adopting methodologies of “lived religion” and “appreciative inquiry,” life‐history interviews reveal three “frames” of “performative speech” through which religious narrative labor helps signal a “disavowal and recasting” of criminal identities: “coming out of the desert” {learning not to hide}, “bringing it to the altar” {help‐seeking through religiosity}, and “making your test your testimony” {using testimonial storytelling for status elevation}. Prolific integration of Christian scripture into personal narratives mirrors the Identity Theory of Desistance. The paper deepens understanding of how religious narrative labor is performed by ex‐offenders enduring carceral citizenship, arguing for more direct exploration of religiosity by criminologists.

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Making sense of Going Straight: Personal Accounts of Male Ex-Prisoners in Hong Kong

Cited by 26 publications

References 12 publications

Challenges Facing Young Men Returning from Incarceration in Hong Kong

Challenges Facing Young Men Returning from Incarceration in Hong Kong

The Resurgence of Religion in America’s Prisons

The Spirituality of Carceral Citizenship: “Making Your Test Your Testimony”

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