Doctoral Dissertation Research: Re-entry organizations and the formally incarcerated

博士论文研究：重返组织和正式监禁者

• 批准号: 1602900
• 负责人: Joshua Whitford
• 金额: $ 0.67万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-03-15 至 2017-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1602900&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Re; entry

Mass incarceration is a social problem in the U.S and it creates the concern of how to reintegrate a large number of former prisoners, many of whom have served lengthy sentences, back into society and back into the workforce. Even as the trend towards mass incarceration seems to be reversing, a large population of people remains who exit jails and must attempt to reenter society. Racial minorities represent a significant portion of these returning prisoners, notably African Americans and Latinos. Women also have also been affected by mass incarceration; as a result of the War on Drugs, drug felony convictions (in addition to non-violent property offenses) account for nearly 80 percent of the female inmate population (Women in Prison Project 2006). Furthermore, as scholars have demonstrated, there is a social stigma attached to a criminal record that serves to limit the job opportunities of people returning from prison, even more so, when those individuals are minorities. The successful reintegration of former prisoners is a social good that benefits all of society as it reduces the risk of future crime (and the cost of re-incarceration) and makes for a safer, less unequal society. This study is a qualitative case study of a private re-entry organization in Cleveland Ohio that will help understand the re-entry process.The proposed research is a qualitative case study of a private reentry organization in Cleveland, Ohio. The major research questions are: 1) Do reentry organizations purposefully broker social and cultural capital for their clientele? How does such brokerage occur? 2) Does the gender of the formerly incarcerated client affect how and what social and cultural capital is brokered by the organization? If so, how? And finally, 3) What is the impact of such brokerage of social and cultural capital on the formerly incarcerated individual who is seeking to reintegrate into society? Data were collected via participant ethnography and interviews with those who make use of the reentry organization and their caseworkers. The intellectual merit of this research is that it will illuminate the sociological processes of reentry of the formerly incarcerated particularly in relation to the brokerage of social and cultural capital by a reentry organization. The findings of the research should have the impact of informing future programming models for future reentry organizations and should also influence policies adopted by the governmental agencies that fund those organizations. The findings of this research will be useful, not only to the reentry field, but also to organizations attempting to reintegrate any stigmatized or marginalized population such as the homeless, the disabled, and refugees. Due to the focus on gender, this research will also be useful for other organizations that work with mixed populations by making them more cognizant of the potential pitfalls of "gender-neutral" policies.

大规模监禁是美国的一个社会问题，它引起了人们的关注，即如何重新融入大量的前囚犯，其中许多人已将很长时间的刑期送回社会并重返劳动力队伍。即使大规模监禁的趋势似乎正在逆转，仍然有大量人退出监狱，必须试图重新进入社会。种族少数群体是这些返回囚犯的很大一部分，尤其是非洲裔美国人和拉丁裔。妇女也受到批量监禁的影响；由于毒品战争，毒品重罪定罪（除非暴力财产犯罪）占女性囚犯人口的近80％（妇女在《监狱项目2006年》中）。此外，正如学者所表明的那样，犯罪记录上存在着一种社会污名，这有助于限制人们从监狱返回的人的工作机会，甚至在这些人是少数群体时。以前囚犯的成功重新融合是一种社会利益，它使整个社会受益，因为它降低了未来犯罪的风险（以及重新监禁的成本），并使一个更安全，不平等的社会变得更加不平等。 这项研究是俄亥俄州克利夫兰的一个私人重入组织的定性案例研究，该研究将有助于了解重新进入过程。拟议的研究是俄亥俄州克利夫兰的私人再入组织的定性案例研究。主要的研究问题是：1）重新进入组织是否有目的地为客户创造社会和文化资本？这样的经纪如何发生？ 2）以前被监禁的客户的性别是否会影响组织的如何以及哪些社会和文化资本？如果是这样，怎么样？最后，3）这种社会和文化资本的经纪对试图重新融入社会的被监禁的个人有什么影响？通过参与人民族志收集数据，并与那些利用重新进入组织及其案例工作者的人进行访谈。这项研究的智力优点在于，它将阐明以前被监禁的重新进入的社会学过程，尤其是与一个再入组织的社会和文化资本经纪有关。研究结果应具有为未来再入组织的未来编程模型提供信息的影响，并且还应影响为这些组织提供资金的政府机构通过的政策。这项研究的发现将不仅对重新进入领域，而且对试图重新融合任何被污名化或边缘化的人群（例如无家可归者，残疾人和难民）的组织有用。由于对性别的关注，这项研究也将对与种群混合人群合作的其他组织有用，通过使他们更加认识到“性别中立”政策的潜在陷阱。