Do We Have It All Wrong? The Protective Roles of Peers and Criminogenic Risks From Family During Prison Reentry

Abstract

Prior work on the process of reentry from prison has highlighted the pivotal role that family and peers play during reintegration. Families are traditionally understood as important protective mechanisms against recidivism whereas peers are typically viewed as primarily criminogenic. Yet, drawing from differential coercion and social support theory, family and peer relationships can both be supportive (and protect against recidivism) and coercive (and contribute to recidivism). Using four waves of data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, results of mixed-effects models demonstrate that family, but not peer, coercion relates to increased odds of reincarceration. Peer, but not family, social support relates to decreased odds of reincarceration. Findings suggest families are primarily criminogenic, whereas peers are protective during reentry.

(Re)Recognizing the multidimensional roles of family and peers on crime

“…In a study published earlier this year entitled, "Do We Have it All Wrong? ", we found that after accounting for family support, family conflict, peer support, and peer crime, our major assumptions about family and peers were completely in opposite direction as would currently be assumed (Mowen & Boman, 2019b). After accounting for the multifaceted roles of both family and peers among a sample of returning persons, we found that family conflict promoted crime while peer support reduced it!…”

Family Matters: Moving Beyond “If” Family Support Matters to “Why” Family Support Matters during Reentry from Prison

“…Finally, the fourth question, which partially loaded onto family conflict, taps an emotional response while the remaining two items of family conflict capture actions (fighting and being criticized). Thus, this item captures a negative emotion probably more analogous to a lack of emotional support rather than family conflict, which could explain why family conflict has been shown to relate to reincarceration (Mowen and Boman 2018b). Collectively, this discussion demonstrates that family support measures are theoretically and methodological distinct.…”

“…As a consequence, accounting for family conflict as a separate measure to family support likely explains some of the differences in findings as well. Relatedly, factor analytic techniques demonstrated that one item used in prior research as a measure of family conflict (e.g., Mowen and Boman 2018b) was capturing negative emotions and not necessarily conflict. Again, these findings strongly suggest that researchers need to better consider the complexities and multidimensional nature of measures of family support and family conflict.…”

“…As some of these substances can be prescribed by a doctor, respondents were asked about illicit use and could respond yes (coded as “1”) or no (coded as “0”). Because these substances represent differing levels of severity, we apply severity weights outlined by Boman and Mowen (2018) and originally developed by Pandina, White, and Yorke (1981). As a result, more severe substances like heroin are not counted equally to less severe substances like marijuana.…”

Examining the Parole Officer as a Mechanism of Social Support During Reentry From Prison

“…Largely defined as the receipt of tangible or intangible resources from social connections (Colvin, Cullen, & Vander Ven, 2002), social support is central to the reentry process. Existing research tends to highlight the importance of families (Bahr et al, 2010; Berg & Huebner, 2011; Mitchell, Spooner, Jia, & Zhang, 2016; Visher, 2004; Western, Braga, Davis, & Sirois, 2015) and peers (Bahr et al, 2010; Martinez & Abrams, 2013; Mowen & Boman, 2019) as sources of social support. These respective groups can provide important mechanisms of support including emotional (e.g., love and care) and instrumental (e.g., physical assistance such as housing and financial) support.…”