Do Released Prisoners’ Perceptions of Neighborhood Condition Affect Reentry Outcomes?

Abstract

As the United States enters a decarceration era, the factors predicting reentry success have received a rapidly growing body of research attention. Numerous studies expand beyond individual-level attributes to assess the contextual effect of neighborhoods to which released prisoners return. However, past studies predominantly used neighborhood structural/economic characteristics as the proxies of neighborhood context, leaving the roles of community cohesion and disorder understudied in the context of reentry. Using longitudinal data, this study examines the influence of neighborhood cohesion and disorder on reentry outcomes, represented by released prisoners’ determination to desist and social isolation. The results of linear regression analyses show that net of the effects of individual-level risk factors, released prisoners’ perception of neighborhood disorder exhibit profound influence on reentry outcomes. Implications for reentry programming and interventions are presented.

For better or for worse?: an investigation of the effects of marital status and openness to self-improvement on criminal offending

“…Numerous social, as well as individual, factors have been studied in relation to criminal activity and desistance from crime. Some of these factors include employment (Liu et al, 2020), race (Rocque et al, 2019), and geographic location (Aksoy, 2017). Marital status is one factor that is increasingly being studied by criminologists to understand how marriage relates to criminality and desistance from criminal behaviour.…”

Decomposition of the Role of Family in Reentry: Family Support, Tension, Gender, and Reentry Outcomes

“…Family matters. Many released prisoners will reconnect (or attempt to reconnect) with parents, spouses, former spouses, and children (Liu et al, 2020d;Uggen et al, 2001). Family can provide much-needed prosocial ties (McKiernan et al, 2013;Naser & La Vigne, 2006;Phillips & Lindsay, 2011), help released prisoners re-establish themselves in society (Uggen et al, 2004), and offer a level of supervision and accountability for released prisoners (Western et al, 2015).…”

When Post-Incarcerated Individuals Return to High-Risk Neighborhoods: Staying Out of Trouble, Social Withdrawal, and Mental Health

“…Longitudinal studies that controlled respondents’ prior mental health conditions also reported a significant association between concerns over neighborhood environment and mental health outcomes (Latkin & Curry, 2003; Liu et al, 2020). For example, after adjusting for baseline levels of depressive symptoms, Latkin and Curry (2003) found that perceptions of neighborhood deviance and crime issues (i.e., vandalism, litter or trash, burglary, drug selling, and robbery) still held significant predictive power on depressive symptoms at a nine-month follow-up interview.…”