I Ain''t Going Back: Prisoner Reentry & the Gray Area Between Success & Failure

Abstract

The empirical literature on prisoner reentry has documented what factors assist in reentry, but these scholars tend to conceptualize reentry as a dichotomous variable: One indicates “successful” reentry and zero is failure to reenter, as measured by re-arrest, re-conviction or re-incarceration, which raises interesting questions about the “gray area” between success and failure. This manuscript aims to analytically disaggregate this binary comparison to explore reentry as a complex lived experience in the “gray area,” which cannot be easily captured by a simple formula. Because reentry largely exists in the “gray area,” methodological pluralism, comprising of in-depth interviews, ethnography, participant-observations, and archival research, is utilized to conceptualize reentry as an embedded micro-level experience informed and shaped by a felony conviction and macro-level policies. By understanding reentry as a lived experience, I reveal the “gray zone” and its implications for why reentry is so challenging.