Reentry and Renegotiating Motherhood

Abstract

Parenting women emerging from prison on parole face numerous challenges to their successful reentry into the community. Along with finding housing, employment, and satisfying the conditions of their supervision, parenting women must also reassume their roles as mothers. This article adds to the literature on reentry by placing women's maternal concerns at the forefront of this process. Combining quantitative explorations of women's parole case files (203) with in-depth interviews (25), this research demonstrates that reentering mothers confront many of the same problems that mediated their incarceration: poverty, lack of education, unstable housing, lack of access to social services, underemployment, and addiction. While the maternal role may constitute a conventional identity "script" for these ex-inmates and motivate their success on parole, the challenges they face that impact their childrearing before prison make reassuming their maternal roles a precarious enterprise. Recommendations for gender-responsive policies and programs are provided.

Parenthood and crime: The role of wantedness, relationships with partners, and ses

“…For example, Edin and Kefalas (2005) argue that motherhood is one of the most important available social roles for poor women, who often cannot count on intimate relationships or success within the realms of education and the labor force as positive sources of adult identity. Brown and Bloom (2009), in a study of female offenders, noted that women released from prison often cited motherhood as a key motivation for reconnecting with family members and reestablishing conventional roles in the community. In a qualitative study of lower SES males, Moloney et al (2009) found that becoming a father appeared to improve the odds of desisting from crime and gang activity.…”

The Effects of Collateral Consequences of Criminal Involvement on Employment, Use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Health

“…One important feature of this set of studies included depicting the processes—or mechanisms—through which poor health and unemployment intersected and compounded health risks over time (model 3.b, Figure 3) (Arditti and Few 2006, 2008; Brown and Bloom 2009; Luther et al 2011; Mallik-Kane and Visher 2008; van Olphen et al 2009). The samples of all of these studies were formerly incarcerated women, and all but one study (Mallik-Kane and Visher 2008) used a qualitative research design.…”

“…These studies clearly identified the inability to find employment after involvement with the criminal justice system as eliciting fear of being rejected or stigmatized in employment application encounters (Brown and Bloom 2009), hopelessness (Luther et al 2011), and depression (van Olphen et al 2009). Studies also link the inability to get a job with feelings of “maternal distress,” in which the inability to provide financial resources for their children exacerbates existing mental health problems among formerly incarcerated mothers (Arditti and Few 2006, 2008).…”

“…Although nearly 25 percent of offenders said that they expected to use “public assistance” upon release, only 5.9 percent were receiving aid 1 month post-release (Visher et al 2004). Qualitative interviews with women leaving prison suggested that reasons for this difference in seeking access to and receipt of public assistance benefits may have been due to women’s fear of stigma during the TANF application process, their unwillingness to involve another case manager in their lives, and the fact that parole guidelines require that they find work (Brown and Bloom 2009; Brown and Barbosa 2001). …”

Female Ex-Offender Perspectives on Drug Initiation, Relapse, and Desire to Remain Drug Free

“…This is due to the strong association of parental criminality and later child delinquency (Eddy & Reid, 2003). However, limiting issues which prevent success in this area include needing to deal post incarceration with the problems that led them to prison initially, such as poverty, unstable housing, substance use and unemployment (Brown & Bloom, 2009). Thus the need for wrap-around services is critical.…”