The expanding prisoner reentry industry

Abstract

The prisoner reentry industry (PRI) has become a major part of the Social Control Industrial Complex. As with the Prison Industrial Complex, the PRI is not just a collection of institutions, organizations, and interest groups (both public and private); it is also a state of mind. Developing and facilitating programs and services for the formerly incarcerated have become a huge “cash-cow,” producing profits for the PRI at the expense of the taxpayer, while doing little to link the formerly incarcerated person to the social capital and human skills necessary to become a “citizen.” Data that include the voices of the formerly incarcerated, members of their families, and criminal justice practitioners suggest that a person’s level of success during their “personal reentry experience” varies in large part, by the individual parole officer they are assigned to and the number and types of programs they are required to participate in. Furthermore, their quality of life after release and their level of success is determined in large part by the program administrators managing those “for-profit companies” and “non-profit/for-profit agencies,” that supervise parolee programs. The argument here is that there must be a better system for monitoring the activities of those organizations that are in the business of facilitating prisoner reentry-related services. A process of accountability that will ensure that organizations part of the PRI are in fact providing services in the manner that was stated and agreed upon during their request for funding. The most important tool for ending this cycle lies in creating employment opportunities for the formerly incarcerated and empowering them to access those resources afforded all citizens. Consequently, if those agencies and organizations in the business of facilitating prisoner reentry were successful at making available the services they argue they do provide, members of these organizations would work themselves out of a job; that would be a valid indicator of organizational success.