Prisoner Resettlement Research Articles

‘In This Prison We Have Our Main Meal at 11:30 AM’. The Significance of ‘Time’ For Food Among People Serving Custodial Sentences in England and Wales

In this article, I am thinking through the social life of time for food in prison from a practice theory perspective. I draw upon empirical data from in-depth qualitative interviews with people serving custodial sentences or recently released from prison in England and Wales who have been on placement at a prisoner resettlement charity (RC). These support findings from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Prisons report on Life Inside: Food from 2016, and I consider two aspects from the report, (i) an exploration of the standards and conditions in which food is consumed and (ii) the timings of mealtimes. For people in prison, disruptions to the usual rhythms of everyday life, or chrono-normative expectations, serve as stark reminders of a lack of agency and worth. People in prison are forced to adapt and work within temporal spaces that are subject to flux due to the systemic demands of an under-resourced prison system. These constitute a contravention of social and cultural norms and reinforce the notion of the prison as a place of punishment, and degradation. These temporal shifts contribute to the transformation of civilian to prisoner and form part of a process of de-synchronising with life outside.

Миграции населения Коми автономии в 1920–1930-е годы

The internal and external migrations of the population in the Komi Autonomy from the time of its creation in 1921 to the end of the 1930s are studied. The authors considered some characteristics of migration processes in the Komi Autonomy of the 1920s - 1930s: the direction of migrations, the role of internal and external, voluntary and forced migrations in the 1920s and 1930s, the ratio of migration and natural increase, the influence of migrations to expand the populated territory and the ethnic composition of the population, the main types of new settlements. It is noted that in the 1920s migration growth was inferior to natural one. Migration processes, the emergence of new settlements and the expansion of the populated territory occurred due to internal demographic resources during voluntary resettlement and agricultural colonization of previously undeveloped lands. In the 1930s migration growth prevailed over natural growth due to the forced resettlement of special settlers and prisoners into the region, sent to work in timber extraction, development of coal and oil fields and construction. By the end of the 1930s the system of settlements and the ethnic composition of the population of Komi Autonomy changed.

Reimagining Probation Practice: Re-forming Rehabilitation in an Age of Penal Excess. By BurkeL.,CarrN., CluleyE., CollettS. and McNeillF. (eds) (Routledge, 2022, 247pp. £34.99 pbk)

Twenty authors have contributed to this collection of 13 essays. They are drawn from every branch of the ‘probation’ community—practitioners, inspectors, academic analysts and teachers. So, unsurprisingly, the quality of the expositions varies a good deal and, somewhat surprisingly, one voice is almost completely absent: that of offenders. Apart from a short quote from a bemused participant in a group work programme—a participant who clearly cannot see how he’s going to escape the traps surrounding him (p. 59)—the offender voice is absent. A bit of ‘lived experience’ would have leavened this sometimes ritualistically worthy loaf. The core message, around which all the contributors have mustered, is a plea, clearly set out in the editors’ introductory manifesto, that probation practitioners strive to retain and develop a commitment to the serious ambition of encouraging offender desistance. This objective is easier said than done given the context within which probation services are now delivered. Indeed, a mood of scarcely concealed desperation occasionally surfaces in the editors’ account. For the backcloth to probation work, be it the preparation of court reports, the supervision of community orders, the delivery of offender programmes or the resettlement of prisoners, is a scarred landscape of: gross and worsening social and economic inequality; increasing and deepening poverty; a housing rental market geared to ownership and inheritance of wealth rather than public utility; employment practices increasingly characterized by zero hour contracts and insecurity of tenure; and the partial collapse of major national and local authority public services whose remit includes the redress of the multiple trauma—childhood, familial, medical and military—which lies behind most serious offending.

Professional support and re-entry preparedness among prisoners

Multiagency support is considered crucial in the successful resettlement of prisoners. Various prison-based and community-based professionals should each play a part in supporting prisoners through the gate regarding employment, housing, financial problems, healthcare or valid identification issues. Yet, little is known about the actual contribution of this support to a better perceived re-entry preparedness among prisoners. To examine the association between professional support and re-entry preparedness, the current study uses self-reported data from 1442 soon-to-be-released prisoners across 26 Dutch institutions. We include general satisfaction with support, and satisfaction with the specific instrumental support received, and compare prisoners who did and did not have reintegration needs prior to imprisonment. Support was positively related to re-entry preparedness for prisoners who had needs prior to imprisonment, and instrumental support from community-based professionals showed the most robust results. The implications and future recommendations are discussed.

‘Thank you for having me’: The experiences and meanings of release from prison in Norway and England & Wales

The day of release from prison can be one of the most highly anticipated events for prisoners, and one which holds a place in the public imagination as a significant and transformative moment. Yet in scholarly literature, although there is much on prisoner resettlement and reintegration, the moment of release itself is seldom mentioned. Drawing on interviews ( N:455) from a comparative research project in Norway and England & Wales, this paper will zoom in on the micro-processes that shape exit, capturing how prisoners prepare for release, the procedures and practices of the release day, and their first encounter with the outside world. In both countries, there was a juxtaposition of personal significance and institutional banality around exit, which contrast sharply with the highly ritualistic processes of sentencing and entry and which frequently led prisoners to reflect on the nature of their punishment and the meaning of their time in prison. By highlighting the details of release, the paper will explore these ideas, probing the boundaries that exist between the inside and outside worlds and connecting the experiences of exit with conceptual ideas of how punishment is experienced and how prisoners create meaning.

Dispositions that matter: Investigating criminalized women's resettlement through their (trans)carceral habitus.

Whether prisoner resettlement is framed in terms of public health, safety, economic prudence, recidivism, social justice, or humanitarianism, it is difficult to overstate its importance. This article investigates women's experiences exiting prison in Canada to deepen understandings of post-carceral trajectories and their implications. It combines feminist work on transcarceration and Bourdieusian theory with qualitative research undertaken in Canada to propose the (trans)carceral habitus as a theoretical innovation. This research illuminates the continuity of criminalized women's marginalization before and beyond their imprisonment, the embodied nature of these experiences, and the adaptive dispositions that they have demonstrated and depended on throughout their lives. In doing so, this article extends criminological work on carceral habitus which has rarely considered the experiences of women. Implications for resettlement are discussed by tracing the impact of criminalized women's (trans)carceral habitus (i.e. distrust, skepticism, vigilance about their environments and relationships) on their willingness to access support and services offered by resettlement organizations.

The impact of policy change on prisoner resettlement and community integration: A case of disproportionate response

The involvement of prisoners on license in the recent London Bridge and Streatham, London attacks have triggered a series of policies aiming to restrict community release. These aim to address not only the point at which prisoners in England and Wales are released, but also the level of engagement prisoners can have with the community before release. They have been introduced with little consultation of the available evidence and, seemingly, with little consideration of those who will be directly impacted as a result of their implementation. This commentary considers how announced changes in policy relating to the use of Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) with prisoners, represent a response which is not only disproportionate to the scale of the problem but may also negatively impact upon prisoner rehabilitation. It draws upon evidence surrounding the impact of early release and evidence surrounding the practices which work to promote desistance from crime to highlight the flaws in these new policies, but also the importance of maintaining community engagement in the rehabilitation of people with convictions.

Building Bridges to the Community: the Kirkham Family Connectors (KFC) Prison Programme

AbstractFamilies represent a form of social capital that can influence effective reintegration depending on the strength of the bond, and the nature of the relationship. An innovative training programme delivered at HMP Kirkham was designed to mobilise the strengths of prisoners, in the period prior to their release, by engaging family members as bridges to community resources and by a shared planning process designed to build stronger bonds between prisoners and their families. The conceptual framework for the Kirkham Family Connectors (KFC) project is based on the principles of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and Assertive Linkage (assisting individuals in engaging with such assets). The project aimed to build prisoner resettlement capital by identifying what each prisoner's skills and strengths were, what enthused and engaged them, and to create partnerships with family members to establish accessible pathways to related resources in the communities to which they would be returning on their release. Evaluation data show that the programme generated hope and a sense of partnership among participants and key lessons for a strengths‐based intervention to support the prison‐community transition. All three of the participating groups – staff, prisoners, and families – reported positive engagement and an emerging sense of hope, and group cohesion through shared goals. There is considerable scope for both peer and probation staff delivery of the programme in the future, and for extending the scale and the scope of the project.

A propensity score analysis of a community resettlement programme for women prisoners

This article presents results from a quasi-experimental evaluation of a prisoner resettlement project for women offenders. Overall the results show that there was no statistically discernible difference in the proven reoffending rate; but frequency of proven reoffending was higher for women who participated in the project compared to the matched comparison group. The approach taken here has broad relevance for those providing services in the community to offenders, as well as government agencies pushing through large-scale reforms to criminal justice as part of the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda. In mimicking the Ministry of Justice Datalab’s approach, this article also lays bare the strengths and limitations of this method when applied to interventions run by community organizations. Further implications for policy and research are discussed in the conclusion.

Health-promoting prisons: theory to practice.

As a setting, prisons offer a unique opportunity to invest in the health of disadvantaged and marginalised populations and address health inequalities and social exclusion - thereby achieving sustainable improvements in well-being for offenders and their families and in turn, helping to reduce rates of re-offending. This article draws on English and French experiences and doctoral research to advocate a shift from a pathogenic model towards a salutogenic model of health as a helpful way to address inequalities and thus, by promoting joined-up working across justice and wider systems, impact positively beyond 'health' for the effective resettlement of prisoners. The paper utilises examples from horticulture to further argue the powerful role of nature in the prison setting in mediating aspects of culture particularly relating to processes of socialisation. Critical success lies in bridging across systems and a commitment to joined-up working at all levels across and beyond prison.

The Waves of Internal Migration in Russia

For the several centuries the population of the European part of Russia has been migrating to the Eastern and North-Eastern peripheral regions of the vast country. The comfortable areas were colonized as well as the deserted ones with severe climate conditions. The cossacks were the first who populated new lands. Some decades after it the peasants followed such strategy. Forced migration of Gulag prisoners and convicts played an important role in migrations during the Soviet period (although the resettlement of prisoners were in pre-revolutionary times too). In the 2-nd half of 20-th century the internal migration in Russia experienced a dramatic change. Since then a massive escape from recently occupied lands has been observed. The fall of the Soviet Union has accelerated the return migrations. In the paper the basic patterns of internal migration in Russia are specified and analyzed on the data of Russian Censuses. Russian regions are also classified by their migration characteristics. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p572

Housing ex‐prisoners: the role of the third sector

PurposeThe aim of the paper is to examine the contribution made by housing‐related third sector organisations (TSOs) in assisting ex‐prisoners to find housing, and the barriers they face in doing so.Design/methodology/approachAn offender survey was used to measure awareness of and engagement with TSOs in eight prisons, alongside qualitative interviews with prisoners, criminal justice staff and TSO representatives.FindingsDespite the involvement of TSOs, securing accommodation for ex‐prisoners remains complex and difficult, largely due to high service demand, housing shortages, budget cuts, and needs assessment and allocations systems which reduce the responsiveness of housing providers to the reducing re‐offending agenda.Research limitations/implicationsThe research benefited from a mixed‐method approach which captured the perceptions of service users and professionals. The response rate for the offender survey was low (12 per cent), and the survey findings should be treated with caution.Practical implicationsLocal authorities and other housing providers need to be more willing to accept ex‐prisoners as potential service users, and better links need to be made between local homelessness strategies, choice based lettings systems and prisoner resettlement programmes. Providing support services to ex‐offenders may encourage such acceptance and help to maintain the motivation to desist from crime.Originality/valuePrevious research has paid little specific attention to the role of TSOs in (ex)offender housing. This paper addresses this omission by drawing on original empirical research to examine the value of their work in securing accommodation for ex‐prisoners and helping to reduce re‐offending.

The Failure of Recall to Prison: Early Release, Front-Door and Back-Door Sentencing and the Revolving Prison Door in Scotland

This article seeks to explain the reasons for the sharp rise in prison recall rates in Scotland. It argues that recall practices need to be understood not as a technical corner of the justice system, but as part of a wider analysis of the politics of sentencing and release policy. While there are sound reasons for a policy of ‘early release’ (incentivizing good behavior and enabling the resettlement of prisoners), in practice early release has increasingly been used as a tool to try to limit the growth in the custodial population. Unable to control prison numbers through the ‘front door’ (judicial sentencing and bail/remand), successive governments have increasingly relied on early release as a surreptitious way of, in effect, re-sentencing prisoners. We argue that this political strategy is ultimately self-defeating, not least in feeding public cynicism about the penal system and community supervision in particular. This article reviews the changing legislative, policy and practice landscape of the regulation of non-compliance and recall practice, and draws on the desistance literature to illustrate how offender-supervisor relationships can be undermined by recall policies which threaten the legitimacy of both the supervisory relationship and the conditions of supervision orders.

Beyond the prison walls: Some thoughts on prisoner ‘resettlement’ in England and Wales

In recent years there has been an increased focus on prisoner resettlement in government policy in England and Wales. Two contrasting trends have been evident. Post-release supervision in the form of enhanced monitoring and surveillance for offenders on statutory licence has grown significantly, while post-release support and provision for adult short-sentence prisoners has been minimalist and remains non-mandatory. This article will examine the problematized status of resettlement in terms of: (a) differentiated meaning; and (b) policy formulation and application. It is argued that ‘resettlement’ attracts many key assumptions and that societal expectations of what can be achieved may be ideationally and conceptually flawed. The discussion centres on both theoretical connections and uncertainties, together with the respective policy implications. An indicative schema of ex-prisoner re-entry is outlined for further analytical exploration and critique. ‘Re-entry’, a ‘buzzword’ in the USA, is preferred for this schema rather than ‘resettlement’ which is the favoured term in England and Wales.

Women, resettlement and desistance

With the numbers of women imprisoned increasing across Western jurisdictions over the last 15 or so years, so too have the numbers of women returning to the community following a period in custody. Despite increasing policy attention in the UK and elsewhere to prisoner resettlement, women’s experiences on release from prison have received limited empirical and policy attention. Drawing upon interviews with women leaving prison in Victoria, Australia, this article discusses the resettlement challenges faced by the women and highlights their similarity to the experiences of women leaving prison in other jurisdictions. Women had mixed (and predominantly negative) experiences and views of accessing services and supports following release, though experiences of parole supervision by community corrections officers were often positive, especially if women felt valued and supported by workers who demonstrated genuine concern. Analysis of factors associated with further offending and with desistance, points to the critical role of flexible, tailored and women-centred post-release support building, and, where possible, upon relationships established with women while they are still in prison.

Re-imagining DDR

Drawing upon criminological studies in the field of prisoner rehabilitation, this essay explores the relevance of the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) framework to the process of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. In a similar fashion to the critique of `passivity' offered by, for example, the `strengths based' or `good lives' approach to prisoner resettlement and reintegration more generally, the authors contend that the Northern Ireland peace process offers conspicuous examples of former prisoners and combatants as agents and indeed leaders in the process of conflict transformation. They draw out three broad styles of leadership which have emerged amongst ex-combatants over the course of the Northern Ireland transition from conflict— political, military and communal. They suggest that cumulatively such leadership speaks to the potential of ex-prisoners and ex-combatants as moral agents in conflict transformation around which peacemaking can be constructed rather than as obstacles which must be `managed' out of existence.

Duration of the time to reconviction: Evidence from UK prisoner discharge data

Duration models were used to investigate reconviction risks for a sample of 34,126 offenders released from prison in England and Wales during 1998. Different versions of the Cox proportional hazards model were applied to a comprehensive data set covering several offense types. Factors such as age (modelled using bands rather than a linear or quadratic format), gender, convictions-history, and offense type were found to be strongly associated with the risk of reconviction. Interactions between factors were also included and it was shown that the discrepancy between the risk of reconviction for males and females became weaker as the number of previous convictions increased. The study helped identify the subgroups of offenders for whom reconviction risks are greatest and the times when they seem to be most vulnerable to reconviction. Implications are explored for the design of prisoner resettlement programs and the prioritization of offenders for more intensive forms of intervention.

How the resettlement of prisoners promotes desistance from crime

The article considers current developments in the ‘resettlement’ of prisoners in the light of recent theory and research on factors promoting desistance from crime. While recognizing improvements promised by the Reducing Re-offending National Action Plan and the concept of ‘end-to-end’ offender management, it is argued that these are unlikely to reduce re-offending significantly without greater attention to individual offenders' mental processes and levels of selfmotivation, which are identified by the desistance literature (as well as much of the ‘what works’ literature) as critical factors in personal change. An account is given of a promising approach adopted in the ‘Resettlement Pathfinders’, where a cognitive-motivational programme was combined with practical services, with encouraging early results. However, concerns are expressed that even the most innovative approaches may be undermined by features of the broader context within which correctional services are delivered, including an excessive emphasis on enforcement (which makes no allowance for the ‘zigzag’ nature of desistance) and the potentially negative impact of ‘contestability’ on relational continuity.

Resettlement of Short-term Prisoners: some new approaches

While the ‘through the gate’ arrangements for the resettlement of medium-term and long-term prisoners still leave much to be desired, since 1968 such offenders have at least received some professional advice, assistance and access to services after release through parole (later ACR and DCR) supervision. Increasingly, too, prisons have helped them prepare for release, through sentence planning, rehabilitative programmes, job training, ‘custody to work’ initiatives, and so on. Short-term prisoners, by contrast, remain little better off in these respects than their predecessors in the late nineteenth century, when the main hope for assistance lay in charitable and religious groups which set up missions outside prison gates. Most still spend their sentences in overcrowded local prisons, with little or no sentence planning, limited access to treatment or training, and only rudimentary preparation for release.

The Reducing Re-offending Action Plan and Prisoner Resettlement

Almost exactly two years after the publication of the Social Exclusion Unit's widely welcomed report Reducing reoffending by exprisoners (July 2002) the Home Office has published its response, the Reducing Reoffending Action Plan, setting out clear action points together with target dates for implementation. The SEU report provided an extremely comprehensive and useful analysis of the wide range of problems, which stand in the way of the successful reintegration of many prisoners into the community after release and which precipitate a pattern of reoffending. It painted a picture of a highly marginalised group of people facing a wide range of practical, health and emotional problems on release from prison without the skills or support necessary to navigate their way around the complex bureaucratic systems required to secure housing, training, employment, benefits and healthcare.