The Effects of Age at Prison Release on Women’s Desistance Trajectories: a Mixed-Method Analysis

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to measure the effect that age has on women's gendered prisoner reentry experiences and the likelihood of desisting from crime and substance abuse. This study also seeks to evaluate the applicability of Paternoster and Bushway's (2009) Identity Theory of Desistance (ITD) for a contemporary, all-female sample. Methods This mixed-method study makes use of official arrest data for 218 women leaving Delaware prisons in the mid 1990s, to create group-based offending trajectory models. A representative subsample of 118 women was interviewed between 2009 and 2011 and asked to conceptualize the mechanisms that led to their desistance or persistence in offending. Results Multinomial logistic regression analyses reveal that for some of the sample, age at the time of release from prison has a positive effect on the likelihood that women will belong to a desisting trajectory group rather than the most deviant reference group. Interview narratives demonstrate that in navigating the post-incarceration gendered experiences of securing employment, family reunification, and substance abuse recovery, maturity, clarity about one's personal responsibility for linked failures, and a desire to transform one's identity were significant factors that preceded the capacity to excel in those reentry domains. Conclusions These findings lend support for the applicability of ITD for women's desistance experiences. As older women appear to express a reentry goal orientation that diverges from that of their younger counterparts, gender-responsive rehabilitation J Dev Life Course Criminology (2016) agendas must also include programming that increases the likelihood that participants will connect failures sooner so that the prosocial benefits of a healthy identity change can be enjoyed for longer.

Health and Justice: Framing incarceration as a social determinant of health for Black men in the United States

“…The experience of women post‐incarceration is highly affected by their race, gender, age, motherhood status, spirituality, level of punitiveness of probation/parole officers, and many other factors (Kerrison, Bachman, & Paternoster, ; Leverentz, ; Morash, Kashy, Smith, & Cobbina, ). After release, women are expected to continue being caregivers within their families (Leverentz, ; Opsal, ), as opposed to men who are primarily expected to receive support from family members when they are released (Leverentz, ).…”

“…Black women, specifically, face a loss of potential same‐race male partners due to incarceration and must serve as the head of the household (Link & Oser, ). Well‐paying and stable jobs are extremely rare among women released from prison (Kerrison et al, ; Leverentz, ), and there are difficulties finding housing due to the stigma of a criminal record (Bergseth, Jens, Bergeron‐vigesaa, & McDonald, ). Since Black women occupy a particular space at the intersection of race and gender, their post‐release experience is exacerbated by high levels of gendered racism during reentry and throughout community‐based supervision (Leverentz, ).…”

Prosocial Identities and Youth Violence

“…There has been a spate of recent theorizing, conceptualizing, and empirical work on the important role that identity change plays in the criminal desistance process. Much of the empirical work on identity change and desistance, however, has been qualitative 1 and conducted with small samples, usually of serious adult offenders (Aresti, Eatough, and Brooks-Gordon 2010; Bachman et al 2016; Healy 2013; 2014; Kerrison, Bachman, and Paternoster 2016; LeBel et al 2008; Na, Paternoster, and Bachman 2015; Opsal 2012; Paternoster et al 2016; Radcliffe and Hunter 2016; Soyer 2014; Stevens 2012; Stone 2016). The research base in support of identity theory, therefore, is fairly thin and of limited scope.…”

Exploring how prison-based drug rehabilitation programming shapes racial disparities in substance use disorder recovery

“…The current qualitative study findings are derived from a stratified random sample of 304 men and women who were selected for intensive face-to-face follow-up interviews in 2010 and 2011 (for a full discussion of the procedures used to locate respondents, and analyze the narratives, see: Bachman et al, 2016;Kerrison et al, 2016). The purpose of these interviews was to illuminate the mechanisms for change in offending and substance use over time, and to allow respondents to speak directly for themselves about what changes they had undergone over the years since their initial participation in the larger study which began in the 1990s, including the factors that both facilitated and inhibited offending.…”