A Life History Perspective on Social Integration after Prison

出狱后社会融合的生活史视角

• 批准号: 1424089
• 负责人: Bruce Western
• 金额: $ 22.86万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1424089&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Life; History; Perspective; Social; Integration

SES-1424089Bruce WesternHarvard UniversityEach year, over 700,000 men and women are released from prison, mostly to poor inner-city communities. This proposal describes an innovative analysis conducted under the auspices of the Boston Reentry Study (BRS); a longitudinal survey of 122 Massachusetts state prisoners newly-released to the Boston area. The project will use BRS interviews -- nearly 700 interviews with men and women released from prison and members of their family' to produce small biographies recording the life histories of each of the BRS survey respondents. Combining quantitative survey measures of housing, employment, and family relationships in the year after incarceration with qualitative life history narratives allows a unique analysis of how individual biographies shape the transition from prison to community. The research will explore how the process of community return is associated with individuals' histories of family relationships, institutionalization, and their sources of material and social support.Despite the importance of the topic, research on the formerly-incarcerated is challenging for conventional quantitative and qualitative approaches. Survey-based studies find it difficult to sample from a hard-to-reach population and measure the process of transition from prison to community. Qualitative field studies find it challenging to fully reflect the great heterogeneity of the formerly-incarcerated population. The project will use analytical transcription of nearly 700 interviews to produce searchable narrative life histories for each of the 123 BRS respondents. Unlike prior quantitative research, the current approach will yield far more detailed information, particularly about early life experiences and the sequencing of major life events. And unlike ethnographic research, the relatively large sample size represents the real diversity of those leaving prison, from the young men involved in drug dealing and serious violence, to the older men and women who have struggled over a lifetime with drug addiction and mental illness. In addition, by tracing life histories to early childhood, the project goes beyond much of the recent work on prisoner reentry "quantitative and qualitative" by linking developmental experiences to adult transitions from prison to community.The project promises three broader impacts. First, the research will provide methods that can be useful to researchers of hard-to-reach populations for which traditional methods may be poorly suited. The current study synthesizes quantitative and qualitative methods providing data collection at scale that facilitates understanding of the life history and processes of integration for those at the extreme margins of social and economic life. Second, the problem of prisoner reentry is also now a question of key policy significance. Several recent and significant criminal justice reform efforts have focused on former prisoners and the conditions of community supervision. The current research will thus inform the policy process and criminal justice reform more generally. Finally, the proposed research, like the BRS project more generally, is conducted by a closely-knit research team comprised largely of students and other young researchers. The laboratory environment of the project provides a unique training opportunity where researchers are actively involved in all phases of the study design, data collection and analysis.

SES-1424089 Bruce Westernharvard Universition年，超过70万名男女从监狱中释放出来，主要是贫穷的城市社区。该提案描述了在波士顿再入研究（BRS）的主持下进行的创新分析；对122名马萨诸塞州囚犯的纵向调查，新释放到波士顿地区。 该项目将使用BRS访谈 - 对从监狱释放的男女进行了近700次访谈，并制作小传记，记录每个BRS调查受访者的生活史。在被监禁之后的住房，就业和家庭关系的定量调查措施与定性生活历史叙事结合在一起，可以对个人传记如何塑造从监狱到社区的过渡进行独特的分析。该研究将探讨社区回报的过程如何与个人的家庭关系历史，制度化及其物质和社会支持的来源有关。尽管在主题的重要性上，对以前审查的研究的重要性对于常规定量和定性方法来说是挑战。基于调查的研究发现，很难从难以到达的人群中取样，并衡量从监狱到社区的过渡过程。定性现场研究发现，充分反映以前占领的人群的巨大异质性是具有挑战性的。该项目将使用近700次访谈的分析转录来为123个BRS受访者中的每个受访者提供可搜索的叙事生活历史。与先前的量化研究不同，当前的方法将产生更详细的信息，尤其是关于早期生活经历和重大生活事件的测序。与民族志研究不同，相对较大的样本量代表了那些离开监狱的人的真实多样性，从参与毒品交易和严重暴力的年轻人到一生中陷入吸毒和精神疾病的年长男人和女人。此外，通过将生活史追溯到幼儿时代，该项目超越了最近关于囚犯重新进入“定量和定性”的许多工作，通过将发展经验与从监狱到社区的成人过渡联系起来。该项目承诺将产生三个更广泛的影响。首先，该研究将提供对难以到达的人群的研究人员有用的方法，而传统方法可能不适合进行。当前的研究综合了定量和定性方法，可按大规模提供数据收集，以促进对社会和经济生活极端范围内的人们的生活历史和整合过程的了解。其次，囚犯重新进入的问题现在也是关键政策意义的问题。最近和重大的刑事司法改革努力集中在前囚犯和社区监督条件上。因此，当前的研究将为政策过程和刑事司法改革提供信息。最后，像BRS项目一样，拟议的研究是由一个紧密联系的研究团队进行的，主要由学生和其他年轻研究人员组成。该项目的实验室环境提供了独特的培训机会，研究人员积极参与研究设计，数据收集和分析的各个阶段。